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ERALD MASSEY: POET, 
PROPHET AND MYSTIC. 


BY B. Q. FLOWER, WITH 
ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
LAURA LEE. 


,o. 


Al:G 7 1895 


>, 


Or ■pas*' ' 


6' 


THE ARENA PUBLISHING 
CO., BOSTON, MASS. 
MDCCCXCV. 




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Copi?rfgbteb t>\? JB. ©. flower. 
1805. 



Tt\is booK is inscribed to rr\y i^ife, 
HHTTIE C. FLOWER, 
\tfI\ose r\oble life, ai\d fine, in- 
spiring tl\oxlgt\t, l\ave been a 
constant aid in all I liave 
endeavored to accon\- 
plisl\ for freedom, 
jxistice and trutt\. 


WORKS BY B. 0. FLOWER. 


Civilization's Inferno; or, Studies in the 
Social Cellar. Cloth, . . , . $1.00 

The New Time : A Plea for the Union of 
the Moral Forces for Freedom and Pro- 
gress. Cloth, i.oo 

Lessons Learned from Other Lives : A Book 
of Short Biographies for Young People. 
Cloth, - - 1.00 

Gerald Massey : Poet, Prophet and Mystic. 
(Illustrated.) Cloth, .... i.oo 



Introtmcton? TOttort>, 

HIS little work briefly discusses 
the life and work of one of Eng- 
land's poets of the people, who 
deserves far more from the hands of those 
who love justice, freedom and truth than he 
has received. I have purposely quoted very 
freely from the writings of Mr. Massey, 
because I am persuaded that, in order to 
know the true self or the spiritual ego of 
an individual, we must see his soul in action, 
see him battling with injustice or error, 
when the profound depths of his being are 
stirred by some high and saving truth ; for 
then is revealed the spirit, unconscious 
for the moment of the fetters of environ- 
ment or the trammels of artificiality which 
surround us all. Then, the curtain is 


raised and we catch a glimpse of the holiest 
of holies of the human soul. This revela- 
tion of the higher self is very marked in 
the noblest lines of a true poet. I have 
had a further purpose in view in thus 
introducing the poet through his own 
words. I desired to bring the high, fine 
thought of Gerald Massey to the attention 
of men and women of conviction, believing 
that his noble ideals, his passionate appeals 
for justice, his prophetic glimpse of the 
coming day, would serve to awaken some 
sleeping souls, while they would strengthen 
others in their purpose to consecrate life's 
best endeavors to the cause of earth's 
miserables and to the diffusion of light. 

In the third chapter I have indicated 
some striking points of resemblance be- 
tween the writings of Massey and Whittier. 
The former is passionately in love with the 


beauty in common life. He is a tl 
reformer, hating injustice more tha 


reless 
n he 


loves life, and lie possesses a spiritual in- 
sight equalled by few modern poets. 
These also are marked characteristics of 
our New England Quaker poet. The titles 
poet, prophet and seer are as applicable to 
the one as to the other, although Mr. 
Massey possesses less intuitional perception 
than Whittier. What he lacks here, how- 
ever, is balanced by his passion for truth, 
which has led him to search profoundly for 
hints and facts that demonstrate the 
reality of another life. 

Mr. Massey has been too fearless and too 
persistent a reformer to be appreciated in 
his time, but his words and worth will be 
treasured in the brighter day, when we 
shall see dawning a social order which shall 
end enforced " slavery for man, prostitution 
for woman, and ignorance for the child." 

As a poet of the common life who has 
revealed new beauties within and without 
the homes of the humble, I admire him : 


iii 


as a fearless truth-seeker who has dared to 
incur the scoffs and sneers of convention- 
alism and the savage hate of ignorance, 
bigotry and fanaticism 5 in the cause of 
truth, I honor him ; and because he has 
been a true prophet of freedom, fraternity 
and justice, ever loyal to the interest of the 
oppressed, I love him. Mr. Massey's face 
has been steadfastly set toward the morn- 
ing; his thoughts are luminous with the 
light of the coming age ; hence it is not 
surprising that he has disturbed the bats 
and owls, or enraged the serpents and 
tigers in society, who instinctively shrink 
from the holy candor of truth or the sweet 
reasonableness of justice. 

B. 0. Flower. 

Boston, January, 1895. 


iv 





'•'■She grew a sweet and sinless child. 



I. Hbe poet anfc tbe fH>am 

HERE are in our midst many 
poets who attract small atten- 
tion from conventional critics, 
as they have studiously avoided the praise 
of conservatism, choosing the byways of duty 
in preference to the highway of popularity, 
and always living up to their highest convic- 
tion of right. The poor, the oppressed, and 
the sorrowing have been their special charge. 
Their* lives have been characterized by 
simplicity, and their words and deeds have 
inspired unnumbered struggling souls with 
lofty ideals and nobler conceptions of life. 
While the wreath of fame has been placed 
by conservatism on the brows of many 
whose empty rhymes have conformed to 
the dilettante standard of "art for art's 


sake," these poets have quietly sung cour- 
age, hope and love into the hearts of the 
people, luring them unconsciously to higher 
altitudes of spirituality. They have at all 
times proclaimed the noble altruism of liv- 
ing for others — the song of the to-morrow 
of civilization. Amid the ambitions and 
jealousies of life, the strife for fame and 
gold, they are not found ; but where tyranny 
mocks freedom and the poor cry for justice, 
their words ring clear and strong. They are 
the people's saviours, for they help the 
multitudes into the light of truth and up 
the path of noble endeavor. 

Among this coterie of chosen sons of 
God, whose unpurchasable love of justice 
and holy candor of soul have rendered it 
impossible for them to yield to the siren 
voices of conventionalism, no name is en- 
titled to a more honored place than that of 
Gerald Massey — the poet-prophet of our 
day, who has stood for truth and right, while 


less royal souls have sold their heaven-given 
birthright for earth's pottage. Had Mr. 
Massey chosen to devote his rare talent to 
the humors and dictates of conventionalism, 
instead of offending the dilettante by boldly 
pleading the cause of the oppressed ; had 
he devoted his gifts to the creation of pop- 
ular lyrics, instead of compelling his read- 
ers to think upon the wrongs of those who 
suffer through man's inhumanity to man, 
he would not have remained comparatively 
obscure and been compelled to eat the 
bread of poverty. For few men of our 
century have received higher praise from 
leading literary critics than this poet of the 
people. And had wealth been able to flat- 
ter him into a fawning sycophant he would 
have become the idol of a gay, frivolous 
and amusement-loving class who imagine 
they are cultured. 

But Gerald Massey was a man before he 
was a poet. His love for justice was 


greater than his desire for the eider down 
of luxury or the chaplet of fame. He was 
the son of a poor man. He himself had 
tasted the bitterness of want. He pos- 
sessed the courage of an Elijah and the 
spirit of an Isaiah. He preferred to reflect 
the best in his soul and devote his divine 
gift to the service of justice, rather than 
conform to the vicious standards which 
conventionalism demands as the price of 
popularity and preferment. He cham- 
pioned the cause of the weak, the poor 
and those whose lives are made bitter by 
having to bear heavier burdens than right- 
fully belong to them. 

Now, because of this magnificient loyalty 
to justice and human rights, because he 
dared to assail the injustice of entrenched 
plutocracy and the hypocrisy of creedal 
religion, he has been denied the justice due 
to his fine poetic talent and his superb 
manhood. But though ignored, in the 


main, by conservatism, he has won the 
hearts of millions who love, suffer and 
wait. And I believe the future will place 
him high in the pantheon of England's 
poets, because he has voiced the real spirit 
of the on-coming civilization in a truer and 
braver way than many contemporaries who 
are basking in popular favor. The follow- 
ing extracts from his writings reflect the 
dream ever present in the poet's mind. 
They may be said to contain the keynote 
of his creed : — 

" The first duty of men who have to die 
is to learn how to live, so as to leave the 
world, or something in it, a little better 
than they found it. Our future life must 
be the natural outcome of this : the root of 
the whole matter is in this life." 

We hear the cry for bread with plenty smiling all 

around ; 
Hill and valley in their bounty blush for man with 

fruitage crowned, 

5 


What a merry world it might be, opulent for all 

and aye, 
With its lands that ask for labor, and its wealth 

that wastes away ! 
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds 

above ; 
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love. 


The leaf- tongues of the forest, and the flower-lips 

of the sod, 
The happy birds that hymn their raptures in the 

ear of God, 
The summer wind that bringeth music over land 

and sea, 
Have each a voice that singeth this sweet song 

of songs to me — 
"This world is full of beauty, as other worlds 

above ; 
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love." 


If faith, and hope, and kindness passed, as coin, 

'twixt heart and heart, 
Up through the eye's tear-blindness, how the sudden 

soul should start ! 


6 


The dreary, dim and desolate should wear a sunny 

bloom, 
And love should spring from buried hate, like 

flowers from winter's tomb. 
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds 

above ; 
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love. 


Were truth our uttered language, spirits might talk 

with men, 
And God-illumined earth should see the Golden 

Age again; 
The burthened heart should soar in mirth like 

morn's young prophet-lark, 
And misery's last tear wept on earth quench hell's 

last cunning spark ! 
This world is full of beauty, as other worlds 

above ; 
And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love. 

Gerald Massey was born in Hertfordshire, 
England, in 1828. His father was ex- 
tremely poor, and Gerald was compelled at 
an early age to enter a factory, and thus 


help support a family which knew all the 
bitterness of biting poverty. Many years 
of his early life were spent in straw plait- 
ing. At eight he was working twelve 
hours a day in a silk manufactory, and 
receiving from nine pence to one 
shilling and sixpence a week. Very 
pathetic is the poet's description of the bit- 
ter struggle with poverty which marked 
his early boyhood. Still, without this 
experience it is doubtful if the world would 
have been enriched by his clarion cries for 
justice or the inspiring songs of hope and 
courage which will be sung and resung 
until the wealth producer is emancipated 
and civilization learns her supreme lesson 
— that Humanity is one. 

John Ruskin, who has ever seemed to take 
a special interest in Gerald Massey, on one 
occasion wrote the poet — " Your education 
was a terrible one, but mine was far worse ; " 
the one having suffered the bitterness of pov- 


erty, the other having been the pampered 
child of wealth. Very few books came 
into the possession of the poor poet boy, 
and his time was so taken up that he had 
few moments for the luxury of reading. 
He received no instruction save that ob- 
tained in a penny school, but his passion- 
ate longing for knowledge led him to many 
fountains of truth which duller minds 
would never have discerned. The book of 
nature attracted his eye, her smile wooed 
him, her voice charmed his ear ; his mind 
unconsciously drank deeply of her truths. 
Like many another poor boy, Mr. Massey 
learned the value of knowledge. His mind 
became a storehouse for truth, rather than 
a sieve, and his passion for the acquisition 
of facts, which was awakened before neces- 
sity compelled him to enter the rank of the 
child slaves of factory life, grew stronger 
as he advanced in years. At a later period 
he became a deep student along several 


lines of thought. An overmastering deter- 
mination to possess the truth and an 
unflinching loyalty to what he conceived 
to be right, have been marked character- 
istics of the poet's life. In him we have a 
curious combination. He is one of the 
most graceful and charming lyric poets 
England has given the world. He is also 
a seer and philosopher, a mystic and scien- 
tific student, a prophet and reformer, while 
all his work reflects simplicity and purity 
of life inspired by his high ethical code and 
lofty faith. For years he has experienced 
remarkable psychic phenomena within his 
own home circle. To him have been given 
test and evidences which have convinced 
him beyond all peradventure of doubt that 
his loved ones who have passed from view 
are neither in the ground nor in some far- 
off Heavenly City of the Christian, nor yet 
in the state of Devachan of the Buddhist, 
but are around about him, in his daily life. 

10 


He has had proof palpable and of such a 
reason-compelling character as to leave no 
doubt in his mind that his dear ones live, 
love and move onward. On this point Mr. 
Massey thus clearly and forcibly expresses 
his convictions : — 

" My faith in our future life is founded 
upon facts in nature, and realities of my 
own personal experience ; not upon any 
falsification of natural fact. These facts 
have been more or less known to me per- 
sonally during forty years of familiar face- 
to-face acquaintanceship, therefore my cer- 
titude is not premature ; they have given 
me the proof palpable that our very own 
human identity and intelligence do persist 
after the blind of darkness has been drawn 
down in death. He who has plumbed 
the void of death as I have, and touched 
this solid ground of fact, has established a 
faith that can never be undermined nor 


11 


over-thrown. He has done with the poetry 
of desolation and despair, the sighs of 
unavailing regret, and all the passionate 
wailing of unfruitful pain. He cannot be 
bereaved in soul! And I have had ample 
testimony that my poems have done wel- 
come work, if only in helping to destroy 
the tyranny of death, which has made so 
many mental slaves afraid to live. 

"The false faiths are fading; but it is in 
the light of a truer knowledge. The half 
Gods are going in order that the whole 
Gods may come. There is finer fish in the 
unfathomed sea of the future than any we 
have yet landed. It is only in our time 
that the data have been collected for 
rightly interpreting the past of man, and 
for portraying the long and vast proces- 
sion of his slow but never-ceasing progress 
through the sandy wilderness of an uncul- 
tivated earth into the world of work, with 
the ever-quickening consciousness of a 


12 


higher, worthier life to come. And with- 
out this measure of the human past, we 
could have no true gauge of the growth 
that is possible in the future ! 

"Indeed it seems to me that we are only 
just beginning to lay hold of this life in 
earnest : only just standing on the very 
threshold of true thought ; only just now 
attaining a right mental method of think- 
ing, through a knowledge of evolution; 
only just getting in line with natural law, 
and seeking earnestly to stand level-footed 
on that ground of reality which must ever 
and everywhere be the one lasting founda- 
tion of all that is permanently true." 

On the vital social problems which 
intimately affect the progress of the race, 
Mr. Massey evinces the clear perceptions 
of a broad-visioned philosopher. He ob- 
serves : — 

" It is only of late that the tree of knowl- 

13 


edge has begun to lose its evil character, 
to be planted anew, and spread its roots in 
the fresh ground of every board-school, 
with its fruits no longer accursed, but 
made free to all. 

We are beginning to see that the worst 
of the evils now afflicting the human race 
are man made, and do not come into the 
world by decree of fate or fiat of God ; and 
that which is man made is also remediable 
by man. Not by man alone ! For woman 
is about to take her place by his side as true 
helpmate and ally in carrying on the work 
of the world, so that we may look upon 
the fall of man as being gradually super- 
seded by the ascent of woman. And here 
let me say, parenthetically, that I consider 
it to be the first necessity for women to 
obtain the parliamentry franchise before 
they can hope to stand upon a business 
footing of practical equality with men; 
and therefore I have no sympathy with 


14 


these would-be abortionists, who have been 
somewhat too " previously " trying to take 
the life of woman suffrage in embryo 
before it should have the chance of being 
brought to birth." 

With the keen penetration of a highly 
intuitive mind, Mr. Massey long ago per- 
ceived that wisdom as well as justice 
demands that woman be accorded a far 
more exalted place than she has been per- 
mitted to occupy in the past, and he has 
been an untiring advocate of absolute 
justice and the same wholesome freedom 
for her as is good for man. I know of no 
writer of any age who has taken higher 
grounds for true morality, both within and 
without the marriage relation, than Mr. 
Massey. He is one of the few men of our 
time who have evinced superb courage in 
demanding that women be protected from 
involuntary prostitution within the mar- 
is 


riage relation. On this important theme 
he observes : — 

" The truth is, that woman at her best and 
noblest must be monarch of the marriage- 
bed. We must begin in the creatory if we 
are to benefit the race, and the woman has 
got to rescue and take possession of her- 
self, and consciously assume all the respon- 
sibilities of maternity, on behalf of the 
children. No woman has any right to 
part with the absolute ownership of her 
own body, but she has the right to be pro- 
tected against all forms of brute force. 
No woman has any business to marry any- 
thing that is less than a man. No woman 
has any right to marry any man who will 
sow the seeds of hereditary disease in her 
darlings. Not for all the money in the 
world ! No woman has any right, accord- 
ing to the highest law, to bear a child to a 
man she does not love." 


16 


Our poet's high ideal of woman and her 
true position is beautifully expressed in the 
following lines : — 

My fellow-men, as yet we have but seen 

Wife, sister, mother, and daughter — not the queen 

Upon her throne, with all her jewels crowned! 

Unknowing how to seek, we have not found 
Our goddess, waiting her Pygmalion 
To woo her into woman from the stone ! 

Our husbandry hath lacked essential power 

To fructify the promise of the flower ; 

We have not known her nature ripe all round. 

We have but seen her beauty on one side 
That leaned in love to us with blush of bride : 
The pure white lily of all womanhood, 
With heart all golden, still is in the bud. 

We have but glimpsed a moment in her face 
The glory she will give the future race ; 
The strong, heroic spirit knit beyond 
All induration of the diamond. 

She is the natural bringer from above, 
The earthly mirror of immortal love ; 


IT 


The chosen mouthpiece for the mystic word 
Of life divine to speak through, and be heard 
W ith human voice, that makes its heavenward call 
Not in one virgin motherhood, but all. 

Unworthy of the gift, how have men trod 
Her pearls of pureness, swine-like, in the sod ! 
How often have they offered her the dust 
And ashes of the fanned-out fires of lust, 
Or, devilishly inflamed with the divine, 
Waxed drunken with the sacramental wine ! 

How have men captured her with savage grips, 
To stamp the kiss of conquest on her lips ; 
As feather in their crest have worn her grace, 
Or brush of fox that crowns the hunter's chase ; 
Wooed her with passions that but wed to fire 
With Hymen's torch their own funereal pyre ; 
Stripped her as slave and temptress of desire ; 
Embraced the body when her soul was far 
Beyond possession as the loftiest star ! 

Her whiteness hath been tarnished by their touch ; 
Her promise hath been broken in their clutch; 
The woman hath reflected man too much, 
And made the bread of life with earthiest leaven. 


IS 


Our coming queen must be the bride of heaven — 

The wife who will not wear her bonds with pride 

As adult doll with fripperies glorified ; 

The mother fashioned on a nobler plan 

Than woman who was merely made/rom man. 

On the proper rearing of children he has 
words to say which should appeal to every 
loving parent : — 

" The life we live with them every day 
is the teaching that tells, and not the 
precepts uttered weekly that are continu- 
ally belied by our own daily practices. 
Give the children a knowledge of natural 
law, especially in that domain of physical 
nature which has hitherto been tabooed. 
If we break a natural law we suffer pain in 
consequence, no matter whether we know 
the law or not. This result is not an 
accident, because it always happens, and is 
obviously intended to happen. Punish- 
ments are not to be avoided by ignorance 
of effects ; they can only be warded off by 

19 


a knowledge of causes. Therefore nothing 
but knowledge can help them. Teach the 
children to become the soldiers of duty 
instead of the slaves of selfish desire. 
Show them how the sins against self 
reappear in the lives of others. Teach 
them to think of those others as the means 
of getting out of self. Teach them how 
the laws of nature work by heredity. . . 
Children have ears like the very spies of 
nature herself; eyes that penetrate all 
subterfuge and pretence. . . Let them 
be well grounded in the doctrine of devel- 
opment, without which we cannot begin to 
think coherently. Give them the best 
material, the soundest method; let the 
spirit world have a chance as a living 
influence on them, and then let them do 
the rest. Never forget that the faculty 
for seeing is worth all that is to be seen. 
It is good to set before them the loftiest 
ideals — not those that are mythical and 

20 


non-natural, but those that have been lived 
in human reality. The best ideal of all 
has to be portrayed by the parents in the 
realities of life at home. The teaching 
that goes deepest will be indirect, and the 
truth will tell most on them when it is 
overheard. When you are not watching, 
and the children are — that is when the 
lessons are learned for life." 

These are twentieth-century thoughts, 
and they are pregnant with the truth 
which will yet make the world glad. One 
thing which impresses the reader, in all 
Mr. Massey's works, is his sincerity and his 
abhorrence of hypocrisy or shams of any 
kind. This thought, which is present in 
all his writings, is emphasized in the fol- 
lowing passage from his "Devil of Dark- 
ness" : — 

" The devil and hell of my creed consist 
in that natural Nemesis which follows on 


21 


broken laws, and dogs the law breaker, in 
spite of any belief of his that his sins and 
their inevitable results can be so cheaply 
sponged out, as he has been misled to 
think, through the shedding of innocent 
blood. Nature knows nothing of the for- 
giveness for sin. She has no rewards or 
punishments — nothing but causes and con- 
sequences. For example, if you should 
contract a certain disease and pass it on to 
your children and their children, all the 
alleged forgiveness of God will be of no 
avail if you cannot forgive yourself. Ours 
is the devil of heredity, working in two 
worlds at once. Ours is a far more terrible 
way of realizing the hereafter, when it is 
brought home to us in concrete fact, 
whether in this life or the life to come, 
than any abstract idea of hell or devil can 
afford. We have to face the facts before- 
hand — no use to whine over them impot- 
ently afterwards, when it is too late. For 
example : — 

22 


In the olden days when immortals 

To earth came visibly down, 
There went a yonth with an angel 

Through the gate of an Eastern town. 
They passed a dog by the roadside, 

Where dead and rotting it lay, 
And the youth, at the ghastly odor, 

Sickened and turned away. 
He gathered his robes around him, 

And hastily hurried thence ; 
But nought annoyed the angel's 

Clear, pure, immortal sense. 

By came a lady, lip-luscious, 

On delicate, mincing feet ; 
All the place grew glad with her presence, 

All the air about her sweet, 
For she came in fragrance floating, 

And her voice most silvery rang ; 
And the youth, to embrace her beauty, 

With all his being sprang. 
A sweet, delightsome lady : 

And yet, the legend saith, 
The angel, while he passed her, 

Shuddered and held his breath ! 


23 


"Only think of a fine lady who, in this 
life, had been wooed and flattered, sumptu- 
ously clad and delicately fed ; for whom the 
pure, sweet air of heaven had to be per- 
fumed as incense, and the red rose of health 
had to fade from many young human faces 
to blossom in the robes she wore, whose 
every sense had been most daintily feasted, 
and her whole life summed up in one long 
thought of self, — think of finding herself 
in the next life a spiritual leper, a walking 
pestilence, personified disease, a sloughing 
sore of this life which the spirit has to get 
rid of, an excrement of this life's selfishness 
at which all good spirits stop their noses 
and shudder when she comes near ! Don' t 
you think if she realized that as a fact in 
time, it would work more effectually than 
much preaching? The hell of the drunk- 
ard, the libidinous, the blood-thirsty, or 
gold-greedy soul, they tell us, is the burn- 
ing of the old, devouring passion which 


24 


was not quenched by the chills of death. 
The crossing of the cold, dark river, even, 
was only as the untasted water to the 
consuming thirst of Tantalus ! In support 
of this, evolution shows the continuity of 
ourselves, our desires, passions and char- 
acters. As the Egyptians said, " Whoso is 
intelligent here will be intelligent there ! " 
And if we haven't mastered and disciplined 
our lower passions here, they will be mas- 
ters of us, for the time being, hereafter.' ' 

In lyric verse Gerald Massey ranks 
among the first English poets. His des- 
criptions of humble life, portrayal of pro- 
foundly human sentiments, and exquisitely 
delicate reflections of those subtle emotions 
which are the common heritage of every 
true man and woman, have rarely been 
equalled. They reveal the power of the 
true poet. Take, for example, the follow- 
ing stanzas selected from " Babe Christa- 
bel," and note the purity, wealth of feeling 

25 


and beauty of expression which clothe the 
simple story of dawn and night in the 
human heart : — 


Babe Christabel was royally born ! 

For when the earth was flushed with flowers, 
And drenched with beauty in sunshowers, 

She came through golden gates of morn. 

No chamber arras-pictured round, 

Where sunbeams make a gorgeous gloom, 
And touch its glories into bloom, 

And footsteps fall withouten sound, 

Was her birth-place that merry May morn ; 
No gifts were heaped, no bells were rung, 
No healths were drunk, no songs were sung, 

When dear Babe Christabel was born : 

But nature on the darling smiled, 

And with her beauty's blessings crowned : 
Love brooded o'er the hallowed ground, 

And there were angels with the child. 


2(5 


The father, down in toil's mirk mine, 
Turns to his wealthier world above, 
Its radiance, and its home of love ; 

And lights his life like sun-struck wine. 

The mother moves with queenlier tread 
Proud swell the globes of ripe delight 
Above her heart, so warm and white 

A pillow for the baby-head ! 


She grew a sweet and sinless child, 
In shine and shower, calm and strife ; 
A rainbow on our dark of life, 

From love's own radiant heaven down-smiled ! 

In lonely loveliness she grew, — 
A shape all music, light, and love, 
With startling looks, so eloquent of 

The spirit whitening into view. 


And still her cheek grew pale as pearl, — 
It took no tint of summer's wealth 
Of color, warmth, and wine of health : 

Death's hand so whitely pressed the girl ! 


27 


No blush grew ripe to sun or kiss 
Where violet veins ran purple light, 
So tenderly through Parian white, 

Touching you into tenderness. 


She came — as comes the light of smiles 
O'er earth, and every budding thing 
Makes quick with beauty, alive with spring ; 

Then goeth to the golden isles. 

She came — like music in the night 

Floating as heaven in the brain, 

A moment oped, and shut again, 
And all is dark where all was light. 

She thought our good-night kiss was given, 
And like a flower her life did close. 
Angels uncurtained that repose, 

And the next waking dawned in heaven. 

They snatched our little tenderling, 

So shyly opening into view, 

Delighted, as the children dc 
The primrose that is first in spring 


28 


The lines quoted above are taken from 
various parts of the poem, and therefore do 
not present the unity of thought which 
characterizes the exquisite creation as a 
whole. "My Cousin Winnie" is another 
very charming poem, in which the author 
describes the child love which throbbed in 
his heart, when, as a boy, he basked in the 
smiles of " Cousin Winnie." I have space 
for a few stanzas only. They will be suffi- 
cient, however, to call up many long- 
vanished images to the mind of the reader. 
For the chambers of the human brain are 
stored with springtime treasures, which are 
forgotten until some magic word is spoken, 
some picture flashed upon the mental 
retina, or a sound of long ago is heard, 
and straightway the sealed door flies open, 
and forth come trooping, as children from 
a country school, the dreams and hopes 
which gilded life's young day : — 


The glad spring green grows luminous 

With coming summer's golden glow ; • 
Merry birds sing as they sang to us 

In far-off seasons, long ago : 
The old place brings the young dawn back, 

That moist eyes mirror in their dew ; 
My heart goes forth along the track 

Where oft it danced, dear Winnie, with yon> 
A world of time, a sea of change, 

Have rolled between the paths we tread, 
Since you were my " Cousin Winnie," and I 

Was your " own little, good little Ned." 

My being in your presence basked, 

And kitten-like for pleasure purred ; 
A higher heaven I never asked 

Than watching, wistful as a bird, 
To hear that voice so rich and low ; 

Or sun me in the rosy rise 
Of some soul-ripening smile, and know 

The thrill of opening paradise. 
The boy might look too tenderly — 

All lightly 'twas interpreted : 
You were my " Cousin Winnie," and I 

Was your " own little, good little Ned." 

30 


And then that other voice came in ! 

There my life's music suddenly stopped. 
Silence and darkness fell between 

Us, and my star from heaven dropped. 
I led him by the hand to you — 

He was my friend — whose name you bear : 
I had prayed for some great task to do, 

To prove my loveo I did it, dear ! 
He was not jealous of poor me ; 

Nor saw my life bleed under his tread : 
You were my " Cousin Winnie," and I 

Was your "own little, good little Ned." 

I smiled, dear, at your happiness — 

So martyrs smile upon the spears — 
The smile of your reflected bliss 

Flashed from my heart's dark tarn of tears ! 
In love that made the suffering sweet, 

My blessing with the rest was given — 
" God's softest flowers kiss her feet 

On earth, and crown her head in heaven ! " 

And lest the heart should leap to tell 
Its tale i' the eyes, I bowed the head : 

You were my " Cousin Winnie," and I 
Was your " own little, good little Ned." 

# * # # * # 

31 


Alone, unwearying, year by year, 

I go on laying up my love, 
I think God makes no promise here 

But it shall be fulfilled above ; 
I think my wild weed of the waste 

Will one day prove a flower most sweet ; 
My love shall bear its fruit at last — 

'Twill all be righted when we meet ; 
And I shall find them gathered up 

In pearls for you — the tears I've shed 
Since you were my " Cousin "Winnie," and I 

Was your " own little, good little Ned." 

Here again in u The Mother's Idol 
Broken " — which, in my judgment, is the 
finest work of this character written by- 
Mr. Massey — we find a depth of emotion, 
a beauty of imagery, and a wealth of pure 
poetic power which would have done honor 
to Tennyson in the best moods of the late 
poet laureate. 

After describing the mother's joy over 
the advent of the babe in the household, 
our poet continues : — 


And proud ere her eyes as she rose with the 
prize, 
A pearl in her palms, my peerless ! 

Oh, found you a little sea siren, 

In some perilous palace left? 
Or is it a little child angel, 

Of her high-born kin bereft ? 
Or came she out of the elfin land, 

By earthly love beguiled ? 
Or hath the sweet spirit of beauty 

Taken shape as our starry child? 

With mystical faint fragrance, 

Our house of life she filled — 
Revealed each hour some fairy tower, 

Where winged hopes might build. 

We saw — though none like us might see — 

Such precious promise pearled 
Upon the petals of our wee 

White Rose of all the world ! 

Our Rose was but in blossom ; 
Our life was but in spring ; 


33 


When down the solemn midnight 

We heard the spirits sing : 
" Another bud of infancy, 

With holy dews impearled" 
And in their hands they bore our wee 

W hite Rose of all the world. 

She came like April, who with tender grace 
Smiles in earth's face, and sets upon her breast 
The bud of all her glory yet to come, 
Then bursts in tears, and takes her sorrowful leave. 
She brought heaven to us just within the space 
Of the dear depths of her large, dream-like eyes, 
Then o'er the vista fell the death- veil dark. 
She only caught three words of human speech : 
One for her mother, one for me, and one 
She crowed with, for the fields and open air. 
That last she sighed with a sharp farewell pathos 
A minute ere she left the house of life, 
To come for kisses never any more. 

Pale Blossom ! how she leaned in love to us ! 
And how we feared a hand might reach from 

heaven 
To pluck our sweetest flower, our loveliest flower 


34 


Of life, that sprang from lowliest root of love ! 
Some tender trouble in her eyes complained 
Of Life's rude stream, as meek forget-me-nots 
Make sweet appeal when winds and waters fret. 
And oft she looked beyond us with sad eyes, 
As for the coming of the Unseen Hand. 
We saw ,but feared to speak of, her strange beauty, 
As some hushed bird that dares not sing i' the 

night, 
Lest lurking foe should find its secret place, 
And seize it through the dark. With twin-love's 

strength 
All crowded in the softest nestling-touch, 
We fenced her round, — exchanging silent looks. 
We went about the house with listening hearts, 
That kept the watch for danger's stealthiest step. 
Our spirits felt the shadow ere it fell. 

The mornings came with all their glory on ; 
Birds, brooks, and bees were singing in the sun, 
Earth's blithe heart breathing bloom into her face, 
The flowers all crowding up like memories 
Of lovelier life in some forgotten world, 
Or dreams of peace and beauty yet to come. 
The soft south-breezes rocked the baby-buds 


35 


In fondling arms upon a balmy breast ; 

And all was gay as universal life 

Swam down the stream that glads the City of God, 

But we lay dark where Death had struck us down 
With that stern blow which made us bleed within, 
And bow while the Inevitable went by. 

This is a curl of little Marian's hair ! 

A ring of sinless gold that weds two worlds ! 

Poetic genius of a high order is dis- 
played in this remarkable production, and 
though the extracts given above carry 
with them the spirit of the poem, they are 
only threads in what, when taken as a 
whole, is a cloth of many tints, rich in 
color and fine in texture. 

Seldom do we find anything so pure and 
sweet as the following lines taken from 
"Wedded Love," in which the poet gives 
us a glimpse of his own deep and rich 
experiences : — 


36 


My life ran like a river in rocky ways, 
And seaward dashed, a sounding cataract ! 
But thine was like a quiet lake of beauty, 
Soft- shadowed round by gracious influences, 
That gathers silently its wealth of earth, 
And woos heaven till it melts down into it. 

They mingled : and the glory and the calm 
Closed round me, brooding into perfect rest. 
Oh, blessings on thy true and tender heart ! 
How it hath gone forth like the dove of old, 
To bring some leaf of promise in life's deluge ! 
Thou hast a strong up- soaring tendency, 
That bears me Godward, as the stalwart oak 
Uplifts the clinging vine, and gives it growth . 
Thy reverent heart familiarly doth take 
Unconscious clasp of high and holy things, 
And trusteth where it may not understand. 
We have had sorrows, love ! and wept the tears 
That run the rose-hue from the cheeks of life ; 
But grief hath jewels as night hath her stars, 
And she revealeth what we ne'er had known, 
With joy's wreath tumbled o'er our blinded eyes. 
The heart is like an instrument whose strings 
Steal nobler music from life's many frets ; 


37 


The golden threads are spun through suffering's 

fire, 
Wherewith the marriage robes for heaven are 

woven ; 
And all the rarest hues of human life 
Take radiance, and are rainbowed out in tears. 

Thou'rt little changed, dear love ! since we were 

wed. 
Thy beauty hath climaxed like a crescent moon, 
With glory greatening to the golden full. 
Thy flowers of spring are crowned with summer 

fruits, 
And thou hast put a queenlier presence on 
With thy regality of womanhood ! 
Yet time but toucheth thee with mellowing shades 
That set thy graces in a wealthier light. 
Thy soul still looks with its rare smile of love, 
From the gate beautiful of its palace home, 
Fair as the spirit of the evening star, 
That lights its glory as a radiant porch 
To beacon earth with brighter glimpse of heaven. 
We are poor in this world's wealth, but rich in 

love ; 
And they who love feel rich in everything. 

38 


Oh, let us walk the world, so that our love 
Burn like a blessed beacon, beautiful 
Upon the walls of life's surrounding dark. 
Ah ! what a world 'twould be if love like ours 
Made heaven in human hearts, and clothed with 

smiles 
The sweet, sad face of our humanity ! 

In " The Young Poet to His Wife " are 
many fine lines, perhaps none more beauti- 
ful than the following : — 

O, Love will make the killing crown of thorn 
Burst into blossom on the Martyr's brow ! 
Upon Love's bosom Earth floats like an Ark 
Through all the o'erwhelming deluge of the night. 
Love rays us round as glory swathes a star, 
And from the mystic touch of lips and palms, 
Streams rosy warmth enough to light a world. 

Among Mr. Massey's personal poems 
his tribute to the author of " The Song 
of the Shirt/' is by far the finest. Indeed, 
this poem is a superb production. The 
melancholy spectacle of Hood battling 


39 


with disease, bravely editing his maga- 
zine and composing immortal lines while 
confined to his bed and racked with pain 
was enough to appeal to the imagination 
and sympathy of a large-hearted nature like 
Gerald Massey's. And then these two 
champions of the poor were kindred souls. 
He who wrote " The Bridge of Sighs " 
was naturally endeared to the poet who 
penned " The Cry of the Unemployed." 
Hood was worthy of the following tribute, 
which I regard as among the finest speci- 
mens of Massey's work : — 

'Twas the old story ! — ever the blind world 

Knows not its Angels of Deliverance 

Till they stand glorified 'twixt earth and heaven. 

It stones the Martyr ; then, with praying hands, 

Sees the God mount his chariot of fire, 

And calls sweet names, and worships what it 

spurned. 
It slays the Man to deify the Christ : 
And then how lovingly 'twill bind the brows 


40 


Where late its thorn- crown laughed with cruel 

lips — 
Red, and rejoicing from the killing kiss ! 
To those who walk beside them, great men seem 
Mere common earth; but distance makes them 

stars. 
As dying limbs do lengthen out in death, 
So grows the stature of their after-fame ; 
And then we gather up their glorious words, 
And treasure up their names with loving care. 
So Hood, our Poet, lived his martyr-life ; 
With a swift soul that travelled at such speed, 
And struck such flashes from its flinty road, 
That by its trail of radiance through the dark, 
We almost see the unfeatured Future's face, — 
And went uncrowned to his untimely tomb. 
'Tis true, the world did praise his glorious wit — 
The merry Jester with his cap and bells ! 
And sooth, his wit was like Ithuriel's spear ; 
But 'twas mere lightening from the cloud of his 

life, 
Which held at heart most rich and blessed rain 
Of tear's melodious, that are worlds of love ; 
And Rainbows that would bridge from earth to 

heaven ; 
And Light, that should have shone like Joshua's sun 

41 


Above our long death-grapple with the Wrong ; 
And thunder- voices, with their Words of fire, 
To melt the slaves chain, and the Tyrant's crown. 
His wit? — a kind smile just to hearten us ! — 
.Rich foam- wreaths on the waves of lavish life, 
That flashed o'er precious pearls and golden sands. 
But, there was that beneath surpassing wit ! 
The starry soul, that shines when all is dark ! — 
Endurance, that can suffer and grow strong — 
Walk through the world with bleeding feet, and 

smile ! — 
Love's inner light, that kindles Life's rare colours, 
Bright wine of Beauty for the longing soul ; 
And thoughts that swathe Humanity with such 

glory 
As lines the outline of the coming God. 
In him were gleams of such heroic splendour 
As light this cold, dark world up like a star 
Arrayed in glory for the eyes of heaven : 
And a great heart that beat according music 
With theirs of old, — God-likest kings of men ! 
A conquering heart! which Circumstance, that 

frights 
The many down from Love's transfiguring height, 
Aye mettled into martial attitude. 
He might have clutched the palm of Victory 

42 


In the world's wrestling-ring of noble deeds ; 

But he went down a precious Argosy 

At sea, just glimmering into sight of shore, 

With its rare freightage from diviner climes. 

While friends were crowding at the Harbour mouth 

To meet and welcome the brave Sailor back, 

He saw, and sank in sight of them at home ! 

The world may never know the wealth it lost, 

When Hood went darkling to his tearful tomb, 

So mighty in his undeveloped force ! 

With all his crowding unaccomplished hopes — 

Th' unuttered wealth and glory of his soul — 

And ail the music ringing round his life, 

And poems stirring in his dying brain. 

But blessings on him for the songs he sang — 

Which yearned about the world till then for birth ! 

How like a bonny bird of God he came, 

And poured his heart in music for the Poor ; 

Who sit in gloom while sunshine floods the land, 

And grope through darkness, for the hand of Help. 

And trampled Manhood heard, and claimed its 

crown; 
And trampled Womanhood sprang up ennobled ! 
The human soul looked radiantly through rags ! 
And there was melting of cold hearts, as when 
The ripening sunlight fingers frozen flowers. 


43 


O ! blessings on him for the songs he sang ! 
When all the stars of happy thought had set 
In many a mind, his spirit walked the gloom 
Clothed on with beauty, as the regal Moon 
Walks her night-kingdom, turning clouds to light. 
Our Champion ! with his heart too big to beat 
In bonds, — our Poet in his pride of power ! 
Aye, we'll remember him who fought our fight, 
And chose the Martyr's robe of flame, and spurned 
The gold and purple of the glistering slave. 
His Mausoleum is the People's heart, 
There he lies crowned and glorified, — in state. 

Many of Europe's most competent and 
conscientious critics have expressed their 
appreciation of the high order of much of 
Mr. Massey's poetical work. " I rejoice," 
wrote John Ruskin to the poet, "in ac- 
knowledging my own debt of gratitude to 
you for many an encouraging and noble 
thought, and expression of thought. Few 
national services can be greater than that 
you have rendered." Thomas Aird, in 
a critical review, observed : " Gerald 


44 


Massey belongs to the new choir. Pathos 
and love and a purple flush of beauty 
steep the color of all his songs." The 
eminent essayist, Walter Bagehot, in criti- 
cising Mr. Massey' s work, said : " His 
descriptions of nature show a close ob- 
server of her ways, and a delicate apprecia- 
tion of her beauties. His images, however 
subtle and delicately woven, are never 
false." 

Here are some melodious stanzas which 
tell us of the poet's hope for a brighter 
tomorrow, a hope which he entertained 
before his long and careful psychical inves- 
tigation, led to the positive conviction 
expressed in his later prose and poetical 
works : 


Although its features fade in light of unimagined 

bliss, 
We have shadowy revealings of the Better World 

in this : 


45 


A little glimpse, when Spring unveils her face and 

opes her eyes, 
Of the Sleeping Beauty in the soul that wakes in 

Paradise. 

A little drop of Heaven in each diamond of the 

shower, 
A breath of the Eternal in the fragrance of each 

flower ! 

A little low vibration in the warble of Night's bird, 
Of the praises and the music that shall be hereafter 
heard ! 

A little whisper in the leaves that clap their hands 

and try 
To glad the heart of man, and lift to Heaven his 

grateful eye. 

A little semblance mirrored in old Ocean's smile or 

frown 
Of His vast glory who doth bow the Heavens and 

come down ! 

A little symbol shining through the worlds that 

move at rest 
On invisible foundations of the broad Almighty 

breast ! 

46 


A little hint that stirs and thrills the wings we fold 

within, 
And tells of that full heaven yonder which must 

here begin ! 

A little springlet welling from the fountain head 

above, 
That takes its earthly way to find the ocean of 

all love ! 

A little silver shiver in the ripple of the river 
Caught from the light that knows no night foreve r 
and forever ! 

A little hidden likeness, often faded or defiled, 
Of the great, the good All-father, in His poorest 
human child ! 

Although the best be lost in light of unimagined 

bliss, 
We have shadowy revealings of the Better World 

in this. 

As I have said before, there is little 
doubt but that Gerald Massey would have 
become one of England's most famous lyric 
poets, had he chosen to confine his gifts to 


subjects pleasing to wealth and convention- 
alism; but, like other royal souls, who 
throughout the past have persistently held 
to the path of duty, he chose to be loyal to 
truth and faithful to earth's oppressed, ever 
preferring the bread of poverty with the 
approval of his higher self, to the applause 
of the dilettanti with a life of comparative 
ease. Such spirits are rarely appreciated 
until they have passed from earth. They 
belong to the Royalty of Nature; they 
are in truth the Sons of God. 



Immortal Liberty, we see thee stand, 

Like mom just stepped from heaven, upon a motinlain" 



n. Gbe propbet 

;HE reformer is always the possi- 
ble prophet. He whose nature 
is so finely strung and whose 
conscience so sensitive to the eternal 
verities as they relate to right and wrong 
that he feels injuries inflicted upon the 
unfortunate and injustice practised upon 
the defenceless as though the evil fell 
upon himself, sustains an intimate rela- 
tionship to the highest as well as the 
humblest expressions of life. If the cry of 
the wretch under the wheel wrings his 
heart, he is also soothed by divine sympho- 
nies, which those of duller sensibilities are 
unconscious of ; and upon his spiritual per- 
ception there frequently flash the lights 
and shadows of the coming morrow. It 

49 


was thus with the great prophets of Israel. 
It was thus with John Huss and Savon- 
arola. It was thus with Whittier and 
Wendell Phillips. And it is thus, in a very 
marked degree, with Gerald Massey. 

It is something more than an unconquer- 
able faith in the ultimate triumph of good, 
learned from the slow ascent of man, that 
inspires the following thrilling lines, which 
are peculiarly appropriate to our present 
social conditions, when a new-born sense of 
right and a quickened intelligence are 
leading millions throughout civilization to 
demand a fairer share in the bounties of 
life: — 

Immortal liberty ! we see thee stand 

Like morn just stepped from heaven upon a 
mountain 
With beautiful feet, and blessing-laden hand, 

And heart that welleth love's most living fountain! 
Oh, when wilt thou draw from the people's lyre 

Joy's broken cord ? and on the people's brow 


50 


Set empire's crown ? light up thine altar-fire 

Within their hearts, with an undying glow ; 
Nor give us blood for milk, as men are drunk with 
now? 

Old legends tell us of a golden age, 

When earth was guiltless — gods the guests of 
men, 
Ere sin had dimmed the heart's illumined page, — 

And prophet- voices say 'twill come again, 
O happy age ! when love shall rule the heart, 

And time to live shall be the poor man's dower, 
When martyrs bleed no more, nor exiles smart — 

Mind is the only diadem of power. 
People, it ripens now ! Awake, and strike the hour ! 

Hearts, high and mighty, gather in our cause ; 

Bless, bless, O God, and crown their earnest labor, 
Who dauntless fight to win us equal laws, 

With mental armor and with spirit sabre ! 
Bless, bless, O God ! the proud intelligence, 

That now is dawning on the people's forehead, — 
Humanity springs from them like incense, 

The future bursts upon them, boundless, star- 
ried — 
They weep repentant tears, that they so long have 
tarried. 

51 


The spiritual intuition or perception of 
the true prophet soul was beautifully 
expressed in the legend of the despairing 
sage. The story comes from that far- 
away time when types and symbols were 
used by the children of earth, and when 
man was so near to nature that at times he 
seemed to hear the voice of the Creator. 

The sage, so runs the story, had toiled 
for his fellow-men through years of suffer- 
ing and privation. He had closed his eyes 
against the temptations of luxury and ease 
which were held out to lure him from the 
service of his race. He had dwelt with 
poverty and had nursed the plague-stricken, 
had fed the starving, always striving to 
fix the eyes of his fellow-men upon that 
which was enduring and divine. He rea- 
soned with scholars on the higher philos- 
ophy of life, and strove to impress upon 
them the kinship of mankind. He appealed 
to the rich to be just, and boldly assailed 


52 


tyranny and oppression. Often he had to 
fly from city to city, and sometimes he was 
offered great bribes to hold his peace. But 
neither the threat of power nor the bribe 
of wealth swerved him from his course. 
His all-consuming desire was to bring about 
the realization of the dream which haunted 
his soul. He longed to behold justice, 
peace and love blossom among the children 
of men. 

At length he became a very old man; 
his hair was silvered, his face bronzed and 
furrowed, his step halting and feeble. 
Many who had followed him when he had 
been able to minister to their physical needs 
now fell away, and the seeds he had 
planted seemed to have rotted and died. 
One day he sought the solitude of the 
moutains and in bitterness of soul prayed 
that he might die ; in his depression of 
spirit it seemed to him that he had lived 
in vain, and the future appeared to be in 

53 


the possession of the powers of darkness. 
Virtue, love and peace seemed routed all 
along the line of human endeavor. 

While lost in prayer, so runs this legend, 
the sage became overcome with a sense 
of peace known only to the victor in a 
glorious cause. Then the heaviness of 
earth fell away ; his soul entered an ecsta- 
tic condition ; his spirit was borne aloft in 
a chariot of luminous clouds upheld and 
guided by invisible hands. At length his 
eyes were opened, when lo ! he was encom- 
passed by a multitude of radiant souls. 
Then his ears caught the symphony of 
nature; he was bewildered. The multi- 
tudes around him were incarnations of 
light, of purity, of love and wisdom. They 
were victors, and the music which swelled 
upon the ear was an anthem of triumph. 

An angel of lofty mien appeared, saying : 
" Because of the failing power of the phys- 
ical form, the truth has become veiled to 


54 


thy vision. Now behold the work of thy 
life." 

Then to him was given the power of the 
Universal Eye. He beheld a home where 
now dwelt a father, once a plague-stricken 
boy nursed by the sage. The father sang 
to his son the songs of love, courage and 
brotherhood which he had learned from 
the prophet long years ago. In another 
cottage he beheld a mother telling the 
story of the great man whose life made all 
men better, and through whose loving care 
the mother was then alive. And he noted 
the radiance in the faces of the eager 
children as they exclaimed, " We want to 
be like him ! " 

Then he beheld one whom he had taught 
in years gone by discoursing to a vast mul- 
titude upon the truths which the prophet 
had in former days impressed upon his 
brain. He saw thousands of eager ears 
strained to hear the evangel which fell 

55 


from the eloquent lips of one he had 
known as a ragged boy. who had followed 
him from village to village with other 
poor people. And then the panorama 
broadened, until he beheld that he had 
all unconsciously kindled fires for truth 
which should yet illuminate his people. 

Then the angel said, " Look once more," 
and he beheld the tumult of battle, he 
heard the screams of the multitude, who 
sank on every hand. After the battle came 
injustice and oppression ; he heard the cry 
of those under the oppressor and beheld 
the sufferings of the world ; and as in 
horror he sought the angel's face, a light 
dawned. It came from the hearts and 
homes of the multitudes. Then the light 
grew brighter; it spread from hut to 
cottage, from cottage to palace. A new 
conflict was in progress. Man met man in 
a struggle on a higher plane ; ideas were 
weapons more often than swords, and in 

56 


the dim future the sage saw the whole 
world bathed in the light of justice, man- 
tled in peace and prosperity . 

So it is with the reformers of all times. 
At moments their souls, so sensitive and 
responsive to the suffering and misery of 
life, also catch the strains of the higher 
music. Their eyes, which see the suffering 
of the unfortunate and the poor as though 
every trial was their own, also at intervals 
catch glimpses of the coming day. In 
one of these great visions Gerald Massey 
breaks into the following triumphant 
strain : 

' Tis coming up the steep of time, 

And this old world is growing brighter ! 
We may not see its dawn sublime, 

Yet high hopes make the heart throb lighter ! 
Our dust may slumber under ground 

When it awakes the world in wonder ; 
But we have felt it gathering round — 

Have heard its voice of distant thunder ! 
' Tis coming ! yes, 'tis coming ! 

57 




'Tis coming now, that glorious time 

Foretold by seers and sung in story, 
For which, when thinking was a crime, 

Souls leaped to heaven from scaffolds gory ! 
They passed. But lo ! the work they wrought ! 

Now the crowned hopes of centuries blossom ; 
The lightning of their living thought 

Is flashing through us, brain and bosom : 
'Tis coming ! yes, 'tis coming ! 

Creeds, empires, systems, rot with age, 

But the great people's ever youthful ! 
And it shall write the future's page 

To our humanity more truthful ; 
There's a divinity within 

That makes men great if they but will it , 
God works with all who dare to win, 

And the time cometh to reveal it. 
' Tis coming ! yes, ' tis coming ! 

Fraternity ! Love's other name ! 

Dear, heaven-connecting link of being ; 
Then shall we grasp thy golden dream, 

As souls, full-statured, grow far-seeing : 
Thou shalt unfold our better part, 

And in our life cup yield more honey ; 


58 


Light up with joy the poor man's heart, 

And love's own world with smiles more sunny ! 
' Tis coming ! yes, 'tis coming ! 

Jesus, who was the supreme expression 
of love, was terrible in His denunciations 
when confronted by the hypocrisy and 
selfishness of slothful, self-indulgent con- 
ventionalism. Gerald Massey has penned 
some of the sweetest lines ever written by 
poet of the people, but when he faces the 
plunderers of the toiling millons, when he 
looks upon the hypocrite and oppressor, he 
becomes transformed. His words are no 
longer soothing and peaceful ; the limpid 
brook becomes a roaring torrent. The 
voice which speaks in the following lines 
is not the voice of one man, but the articu- 
late cry of millions, thrown into speech 
by the instrument of God, that the wise 
may be warned, and, being warned, may be 
saved from the ruin which must and will 
overtake that society which selfishly imag- 


ines it can eternally thwart the upward 
march of humanity : — 

Back, tramplers on the many ! Death and danger 

ambushed lie ; 
Beware ye, or the blood may run ! The patient 

people cry : 
"Ah, shut not out the light of hope, or we may 

blindly dash, 
Like Samson with his strong death-grope, and whelm 

ye in the crash. 
Think how they spurred the people mad, that old 

regime of France, 
Whose heads, like poppies, from death's scythe, fell 

in a bloody dance. 

In the following stanzas we are re- 
minded of some of the old prophets of 
Israel, who championed the cause of God 
and the poor at the risk of life, and uttered 
luminous truths which still light up man's 
pathway. Mr. Massey is nothing if not a 
fearless reformer. He does not believe in 
a half loaf when justice is the issue. The 


60 


people have certain rights of which they 
are deprived by the special privileges 
enjoyed by a favored few. Against 
these wrongs, which are day by day becom- 
ing more apparent to thoughtful and truly 
enlightened men and women, our poet 
speaks with that courage and sincerity 
which is as refreshing as it is rare in our 
age of sycophancy : — 

Thus saith the Lord : You weary me 

With prayers, and waste your own short years ; 
Eternal truth you cannot see 

Who weep, and shed your sight in tears ! 
In vain you wait and watch the skies — 

No better fortune thus will fall ; 
Up from your knees I bid you rise, 

And claim the earth for all. 

Behold in bonds your mother earth, 

The rich man's prostitute and slave ! 
Your mother earth, that gave you birth, 

You only own her for a grave ! 
And will you die like slaves, and see 

Your mother left a fettered thrall ! 


61 


Nay live like men and set her free 
As heritage for all. 

In the same strain, and speaking not as 
an individual but as the articulate voice of 
eternal justice, Mr. Massey elsewhere utters 
these words to the toiling millions : — 

Lift up your faces from the sod ; 

Frown with each furrowed brow ; 
Gold apes a mightier power than God, 

And wealth is worshipped now ! 
In all these toil-ennobled lands 

You have no heritage ; 
They snatch the fruit of youthful hands, 

The staff from weary age. 
Oh, tell them in their palaces, 

These lords of land and money, 
They shall not kill the poor like bees, 

To rob them of life's honey. 

Through long, dark years of blood and tears. 
You've toiled like branded slaves 

Till wrong's red hand hath made a land 
Of paupers, prisons, graves ! 


But our long sufferance endeth now ; 

Within the souls of men 
The fruitful buds of promise blow, 

And freedom lives again ! 
Oh, tell them in their palaces, 

These lords of land and money, 
They shall not kill the poor like bees, 

To rob them of life's honey. 

In his prose works he takes the same 
radical and uncompromising stand for 
absolute justice for the lowliest. In one 
place he says : — 

" We mean to have a day of reckoning 
with the unjust stewards of the earth. 
We mean to have the national property 
restored to the people. We mean that the 
land, with its inalienable right of living, 
its mineral wealth below the soil and its 
waters above, shall be open to all. We 
mean to have our banking done by the 
state, and our railways worked for the 
benefit of the whole people. We mean to 


temper the terror of rampart individualism 
with the principles of co-operation. We 
mean for woman to have perfect equality 
with man, social, religous and political, and 
her fair share in that equity which is of no 
sex. "We mean also that the same stand- 
ard of morality shall apply to the man as 
to the woman. In short, we intend that 
the redress of wrongs and the righting of 
inequalities, which can only be rectified in 
this world, shall not be put off and post- 
poned to any future stage of existence. ,, 

In another place he asserts with empha- 
sis : — 

" Humanity is one. The Eternal intends 
to show us that humanity is one. And the 
family is more than the individual mem- 
ber, the Nation is more than the family, 
and the human race is more than the 
nation. And if we do not accept the 
revelation lovingly, do not take to the fact 
kindly, why then 'tis flashed upon us 

64 


terribly, by lightning of hell, if we will not 
have it by light of heaven — and the poor, 
neglected scum and canaille of the nations 
rise up mighty in the strength of disease, 
and prove the oneness of humanity by kill- 
ing you with the same infection. 

"It has recently been shown how the poor 
of London do not live, but fester in the 
pestilential hovels called their homes. To 
get into these you have to visit courts 
which the sun never penetrates, which are 
never visited by a breath of fresh air, and 
which never know the virtues of a drop of 
cleansing water. Immorality is but the 
natural outcome of such a devil's spawning 
ground. The poverty of many who strive 
to live honestly is appalling. 

" And this disclosure is made with the 
customary moan that such people attend 
neither church nor chapel, as if that were 
the panacea. I should not wonder if these 
revelations result in the building of more 


65 


churches and chapels, and the consecration 
of at least one or two more bishops. 

" The Bishop of Bedford said the other 
day, c It was highly necessary that in these 
times when the poor have so little earthly 
enjoyment, the joys of heaven should be 
made known to them/ It is not possible 
to caricature an utterance so grotesque as 
that." 

In his songs of humanity, there is the 
calm assurance of the philosopher, that 
right will ultimately prevail. He pleads for 
the millions under the rod. He may not 
see the false falling away around him, but 
far up the mountain slope he sees the 
purpling dawn growing brighter. Looking 
backward he perceives that the present, 
with its hideousness and wrong is not, so 
dark as the past, and with that trust in the 
final triumph of right which makes him 
optimistic, he thus refers to his songs for 
the oppressed : — 


Let nry songs be cited 

As breakers of the peace, 
Till the wrongs are righted, 

The man-made miseries cease ; 
Till earth's disinherited 
Beg no more to earn their bread ; 
Till the consuming darts of burning day 
Shall fire the midnight foxes ; scare away 
From labor's fruits the parasites of prey. 

Let them die when all is done, 

Now victoriously begun ! 
Our visions have not come to naught, 

Who saw by lightning in the night, 
The deeds we dreamed are being wrought 

By those who work in clearer light ; 
In other ways our fight is fought, 
And other forms fulfill our thought 

Made visible to all men's sight. 

There is a certain thought-compelling 
power in many of his poems of labor found 
only in the work of an enthusiast, mad 
with divine love for his fellow-men. Often 
he outlines upon his canvas a splendid 
dream, a big hope, a grand aspiration, and 

67 


then in the foreground he paints with a 
few bold strokes a frightful truth. The 
antithesis is tremendous in its effects, as 
will be seen in the following stanza : — 

When the heart of one-half the world doth beat 

Akin to the brave and the true, 
And the tramp of democracy's earth-quaking feet 

Goes thrilling the wide world through — 
We should not be crouching in darkness and dust, 

And dying like slaves in the night ; 
But big with the might of the inward " must " 

We should battle for freedom and right ! 
Our fathers are praying for pauper pay, 

Our mothers with death's kiss are white ; 
Our sons are the rich man's serfs by day, 

And our daughters his slaves by night. 

Many of Massey's poems are as appli- 
cable to the problems now confronting us 
as if called forth by present-day conditions 
in our own land. Take for example the 
following " Cry of the Unemployed," which 
reveals the profound sympathy and appre- 


08 


ciation felt by our poet for the struggling 
unfortunates : — 

"lis hard to be a wanderer through this bright 

world of ours, 
Beneath a sky of smiling blue, on fragrant paths of 

flowers, 
With music in the woods, as there were nought but 

pleasure known, 
Or Angels walked Earth's solitudes, and yet with 

want to groan : 
To see no beauty in the stars, nor in Earth's wel- 
come smile, 
To wander cursed with misery ! willing, but cannot 

toil. 
With burning sickness at my heart, I sink down 

famished : 
God of the Wretched, hear my prayer : I would that 

I were dead ! 

Heaven droppeth down with manna still in many a 

golden shower, 
And feeds the leaves with fragrant breath, with 

silver dew the flower. 
Honey and fruit for Bee and Bird, with bloom 

laughs out the tree, 


And food for all God's happy things; but none 

gives food to me. 
Earth, wearing plenty for a crown, smiles on my 

aching eye, 
The purse-proud, — swathed in luxury, — disdainful 

pass me by : 
I've willing hands, and eager heart — but may not 

work for bread ! 
God of the Wretched, hear my prayer : I would 

that I were dead ! 

Gold, art thou not a blessed thing, a charm above 

all other, 
To shut up hearts to Nature's cry, when brother 

pleads with brother ? 
Hast thou a music sweeter than the voice of loving 

kindness ? 
No ! curse thee, thou'rt a mist 'twixt God and men 

in outer blindness. 
" Father, come back" I my Children cry; thei r 

voices, once so sweet, 
Now pierce and quiver in my heart ! I cannot, dare 

not meet 
The looks that make the brain go mad, for dear 

ones asking bread — 
God of the Wretched, hear my prayer : I would 

that I were dead ! 

70 


Lord ! what right have the poor to wed ? Love 's 

for the gilded great : 
Are they not formed of nobler clay, who dine off 

golden plate ? 
'Tis the worst curse of Poverty to have a feeling 

heart : 
Why can I not, with iron grasp, choke out the 

tender part ? 
I cannot slave in yon Bastille! I think 'twere 

bitterer pain, 
To wear the Pauper's iron within, than drag the 

Convict's chain. 
I'd work but cannot, starve I may, but will not beg 

for bread : 
God of the Wretched, hear my prayer : I would 

that I were dead ! 

The slow progress of justice frequently 
makes the faint-hearted waver, and many 
who start out in youth brave and valiant 
reformers are lured into the toils of sloth- 
ful conventionalism, others become des- 
pondent and give up even before the sun 
of life has crossed the meridian. To such 


71 


faltering ones Gerald Massey speaks in 
these stirring lines : — 

Never despair ! O, my Comrades in sorrow ! 

I know that our mourning is ended not. Yet, 
Shall the vanquished today be the Victors tomor- 
row. 
Our star shall shine on in the Tyrant's Sunset. 
Hold on ! though they spurn thee, for whom thou 
art living 
A life only cheered by the lamp of its love . 
Hold on ! Freedom's hope to the bounden ones 
giving ; 
Green spots in the waste wait the worn spirit- 
dove. 
Hold on, — still hold on, — in the world's despite, 
Nurse the faith in thy heart, keep the lamp of 
Truth bright, 
And, my life for thine ! it shall end in the Right. 

What, though the Martyrs and Prophets have per- 
ished ! 
The Angel of Life rolls the stone from their 
graves : 
Immortal 's the faith and the freedom they cher- 
ished, 
Their lone Triumph-cry stirs the spirits of slaves! 
72 


They are gone, — but a Glory is left in our life, 
Like the day-god 's last kiss on the darkness of 
Even- 
Gone down on the desolate seas of their strife, 

To climb as star-beacons up Liberty's heaven. 
Hold on, — still hold on, — in the world's despite 
Nurse the faith in thy heart, keep the lamp of 
Truth bright, 
And, my life for thine ! it shall end in the Right. 

Think of the Wrongs that have ground us for ages, 

Think of the Wrongs we have still to endure ! 
Think of our blood, red on History's pages ; 

Then work that our reck'ning be speedy and sure. 
Slaves cry to their Gods ! but be our God revealed 

In our lives, in our words, in our warfare for 
man ; 
And bearing — or borne upon — Victory's shield, 

Let us fight battle-harnessed, and fall in the van. 
Hold on, — still hold on, — in the world's despite, 

Nurse the faith in thy heart, keep the lamp of 
Truth bright, 
And, my life for thine ! it shall end in the Right. 

And to the faint heart who would turn 
aside because the multitude fail to appre- 

73 


ciate the single-hearted struggle made for 
them, our poet has this message : — 

Hope on, hope ever ! though To-day be dark, 

The sweet sunburst may smile on thee Tomorrow ; 
Though thou art lonely, there's an eye will mark 

Thy loneliness, and guerdon all thy sorrow ? 
Though thou must toil 'mong cold and sordid men, 

With none to echo back thy thought, or love 
thee, 
Cheer up, poor heart ! thou dost not beat in vain 

While God is over all, and heaven above thee, 
Hope on, hope ever, 

The iron may enter in and pierce the soul, 

But cannot kill the love within thee burning, 
The tears of misery, thy bitter dole, 

Can never quench thy true heart's eager yearn- 
ing 
For better things ; nor crush thy ardour's trust, 
That Error from the mind shall be uprooted, 
That Truth shall flower from all this tear-dewed 
dust, 
And Love be cherished where Hate was em- 
bruted ! 

Hope on, hope ever. 

74 


I know ' tis hard to bear the sneer and taunt, — 

With the heart's honest pride at midnight wres- 
tle ; 
To feel the killing canker-worm of Want 

While rich rogues in their mocking luxury nestle ; 
For I have felt it. Tet from Earth's cold Real 

My soul looks out on coming things, and cheerful 
The warm Sunrise floods all the land Ideal, 

And still it whispers to the worn and tearful, 
Hope on, hope ever. 

Hope on, hope ever ! after darkest night 

Comes full of loving life, the laughing Morning ; 
Hope on, hope ever! Spring-tide, flushed with 
light, 

Aye crowns old Winter with her adorning. 
Hope on, hope ever ! For the time shall come, 

When man to man shall be a friend and brother ; 
And this old world shall be a happy home, 

And all Earth's family love one another ! 
Hope on, hope ever. 

In this little poem, entitled " The Kingli- 
est Kings/' the poet makes the same 
stirring appeal to the conscience of the 
individual : — 


75 


Ho ! ye who in noble work 

Win scorn, as flames draw air, 
And in the way where Lions lurk, 

God's image bravely bear ; 
Though trouble-tried and torture-torn, 
The kingliest Kings are crowned with thorn. 

Life's glory like the bow in heaven, 

Still springeth from the cloud ; 
Soul ne'er out-soared the starry Seven 

But Pain's fire-chariot rode : 
They've battled best who've boldliest borne ; 
The kingliest Kings are crowned with thorn. 

The martyr's fire- crown on the brow 

Doth into glory burn ; 
And tears that from Love's torn heart flow, 

To pearls of spirit turn, 
Our dearest hopes in pangs are born ; 
The kingliest Kings are crowned with thorn. 

As beauty in Death's cerement shrouds, 

And Stars be jewel Night, 
Bright thoughts are born in dim heart-clouds, 

And suffering worketh might. 
The mirkest hour is Mother o' Morn, 
The kingliest Kings are crowned with thorn. 

76 


Such work is very effective. It gives 
the glorious ideal to which the noblest of 
earth's children aspire, and then it turns 
the flash-light upon the heinous crimes 
which easy-going conventionalism tolerates. 
The reformer beholds the wrong in all its 
enormity. He utters a cry of horror. The 
slow-thinking people are aroused by the 
cry, and they ask, Can such things be ? 
They raise the question, and an agitation 
is commenced which, sooner or later, ends 
in victory for justice. The exclamation 
and interrogation points are the staff and 
crook of progress. I shall close my ex- 
tracts from Mr. Massey's inspiring songs of 
labor by giving two stanzas from " The 
Awakening": — 

Oh! earth has no sight half so glorious to see, 
As a people up-girding its might to be free. 

To see men awake from the slumber of ages, 

Their brows grim from labor, their hands hard 
and tan, 

77 


Start up living heroes, long dreamt-of by Sages ! 

And smite with strong arm the oppressors of 
man: 
To see them come dauntless forth 'mid the world's 
warring, 

Slaves of the midnight mine ! Serfs of the sod ! 
Show how the Eternal within them is stirring, 

And never more bend to a crowned clod : 
Dear God ! 'tis a sight for Immortals to see, — 
A People up-girding its might to be free. 

Battle on bravely, O sons of Humanity ! 

Dash down the cup from your lips, O ye Toilers! 
Too long hath the world bled for Tyrant's insanity — • 
Too long our weakness been strength to our 
spoilers ! 
The heart that through danger and death will be 
dutiful, 
Soul that with Cranmer in fire would shake 
hands, 
And a life like a palace home built for the beauti- 
ful, 
Freedom of all her beloved demands — 
And earth has no sight half so glorious to see, 
As People up-girding its might to be free ! 


78 


Mr. Massey has labored throughout his 
life for the oppressed in every condition 
of ignorance and superstition. Wherever 
man, woman, or child has suffered through 
injustice, his voice has leaped forth in 
defence of the wronged, and against the 
wrong-doer he has waged an incessant 
warfare. He has boldly championed the 
cause of woman, steadfastly demanding for 
her that full-orbed justice which she must 
receive before the higher civilization will 
be assured. And in the nineteenth cen- 
tury no philosopher or reformer has 
pleaded more earnestly for the rights of 
children, and that their lives be permitted 
to unfold under the best possible condi- 
tions, than this pure-souled, earnest man. 

We are entering a struggle which will 
prove the most momentous Western civili- 
zation has ever known, because the con- 
flict is along every line of advance. Social 
and economic problems, or the theory of 

79 


man's relationship to man and to society 
as a whole ; the problem of religion, the 
realm of psychical science, the rights of 
woman, the requirements and possibilities 
of childhood — these are some of the ques- 
tions around which the forces of conserva- 
tism and progress are already rallying for 
a sanguinary conflict. Upon all these ques- 
tions Mr. Massey has spoken, and spoken 
in no uncertain voice. And, what is more 
important, he has always placed himself 
squarely on the side of progress and the 
dawn. Therefore I believe that the gener- 
ation of the future, who will enjoy, in a 
measure, the fruits of the higher and truer 
life for which the prophet worked, will 
appreciate his splendid services, and en- 
shrine his name among the immortal coterie 
who placed truth and the good of their 
fellow-men above the comforts of life or 
the applause of the world. 


80 



;HE prophet and mystic must 
not be confused with the 
priest, for, speaking broadly, 
the two represent widely divergent 
spheres of thought. The prophet is 
the herald of progress. He assails out- 
grown beliefs, entrenched wrongs, and con- 
ventional injustice. He points from the 
half truths which were once helpful step- 
ping stones, but which now retard man's 
onward march, to the broader vision which 
the future presents. His eye rests on the 
luminous peaks which lie before. He has 
unbounded faith in freedom. He is often a 
destroyer of the old, but it is that the new 
may rise in fairer forms and be of more 
enduring character. If he tears down the 

81 


log cabin, it is that he may erect the mar- 
ble palace. 

The priest, on the other hand, is the 
defender of conservatism. He distrusts 
the new. To him the prophet is a destruc- 
tions t who ignores that which age has 
sanctified and time made venerable. He 
fears that wider liberty and greater knowl- 
edge will prove dangerous. He worships 
at the shrine of the past. What is written, 
or what other ages have believed, is, in a 
certain way, sacred to him. The question, 
Is it true ? breaks powerless as waves 
before the precipice, when it beats against 
his prejudice and the veneration with 
which he views the established order which 
has been sanctified by time. The priest is 
the bulwark of conventionalism. 

This contrast is strikingly illustrated in 
the history of Israel's prophets. But no- 
where does it find so impressive an illustra- 
tion as in the life of Jesus. Here we see 


the relative attitude of the two great 
spheres of thought represented by these 
classes. On the one side was Jesus, the 
prophet and mystic; on the other, the 
priesthood, upholding the past and defend- 
ingconditions as they existed. Jesus cried, 
"Ye have heard it said, 'An eye for an 
eye/ but I say, Love your enemies." 
Jesus disregarded the ceremonials, the 
dogmas, and the forms held sacred by the 
church. He was a Sabbath breaker. He 
mingled with publicans and sinners. He 
healed the sick in a way entirely irregular. 
His teachings were regarded as sacrilegious 
and essentially dangerous to the established 
order. The great prophet and mystic 
pointed to the higher altitudes of spiritual 
attainment. He drew inspiration from the 
lily of the field. The gold of morning and 
the flaming scarlet of the evening, the stars 
and blue Galilee, spoke more eloquently to 
him of his Father than did the stories of 


83 


bloody strife in which the God of love was 
represented as ordering defenceless women 
and innocent babes to be mercilessly slain. 
The priesthood then, as has been ever the 
case, worshipped at the tomb of yesterday's 
thought and drew inspiration from the 
ideals of earlier ages, which time had made 
first venerable and then sacred in the eyes 
of man. It naturally regarded him at first 
with apprehension, later with alarm, and 
finally the fear of its members expressed 
itself in a deadly hate which ended in his 
martydom. It was repetition of history. 
The reputation and life of the prophet are 
always in danger. He will be misrepre- 
sented, slandered and misjudged, if he 
escape the penalty of the death sentence 
At rare intervals the soul of the prophet 
and mystic has been found under the robes 
of a priest, but here usually the priesthood 
has been arrayed against the iconoclast. 
Savonarola was a conspicious example of 
this class. 

84 


In the sphere of religion the prophet is 
ever the advance courier of truth. He 
blazes the way for the groping multitude. 
He is impelled onward by the divine 
afflatus. He is always disquieting. He 
stimulates reason. He awakes the soul 
life. He points to the lily and says. Con- 
sider. He turns to the sky, glorious in the 
splendor of dawn or spangled with the 
silver of night, and exclaims, Behold! He 
takes up the record of the past, and, in a 
word, warns against unlimited scepticism 
and blind credulity. Do not, he urges, 
reject as wholly worthless, or accept as 
entirely divine, the accumulated wisdom 
and follies of ancient days, but search for 
the truth. He looks into the faces of the 
thoughtful and says, Come, let us reason 
together. Consider — behold — search — 
reason ! Thus does the prophet awaken 
the soul of man. He calls to the sleeping 
ego to be something more than an animal. 

85 


He arouses the divine life, calls into action 
the higher potentialities of the man's be- 
ing, and in this way is a saviour to the 
individual as well as a torch bearer to 
civilization. 

I speak of the prophet and mystic as 
one ; for in truth the distinction is rather 
of degree than of nature; or, to be more 
accurate, they are different manifestations 
of the divine in man. The prophet is an 
engine in action. He is an aggressive 
power for righteousness now and here. 
He mingles with the surging tide of good 
and evil, a warrior for justice and truth. 
The mystic ascends the mountains of sprit- 
uality and drinks deeply from the divine 
fountains. The truths of God steal into his 
soul silently and with an all-pervading 
influence, as comes the evening dew or 
the soft light of day. We are told 
that Jesus, on occasions, doubtless when 
weary with battling against the powers 

86 


of evil on every side, and sick at heart for 
poor, suffering humanity, withdrew into 
the mountains to pray — that is, to com- 
mune with the Infinite. 

The mystic craves the inspiration of soli- 
tude when torn by the discord of human 
strife. He posesses a strong intuitional 
nature. His interior vision is preternatur- 
ally developed. He hears, sees, and with- 
in his soul knows many things which elude 
the grasp of the self-seeking, business- 
enthralled struggler upon earth's restless 
highways. Some time ago I visited a 
friend who is a scientist and a deep student 
of the vibratory law. Taking down an 
instrument somewhat resembling a horn, 
he handed it to me. I put it to my ear 
and instantly I heard a great roaring in 
the room — a noise suggestive of a com- 
ing storm. I had merely been able to 
gather some of. the noises present, which 
without the instrument, had escaped my 

87 


hearing. Doubtless the reader has often 
tried the same experiment with a shell. 
Now, the interior nature of the mystic is so 
thoroughly awake that his vision penetrates 
farther than those in whom the spiritual 
nature is less sensitive, and in moments of 
exaltation he beholds humanity with face 
set toward the sky — humanity moving 
slowly, and often with halting step, but 
ever moving God ward. He hears the voice 
of ihe Infinite, and knows that the ulti- 
mate end of all is Good. He speaks the 
words he hears unto those whose eyes are 
fixed upon the stars. 

Sometimes he descends to the seething, 
struggling world below, where, tiger-like, 
man devours his fellow-men. Then the 
mystic not unfrequently becomes the 
prophet and reformer. In Jesus, we see 
the perfect blending ■ — the mystic, prophet 
and reformer ; and in our own time we 
have frequently seen this trinity in unity. 

88 


The poet Whittier affords a striking illus- 
tration in point. "When confronting in- 
justice and inhumanity the sweet-souled 
Quaker poet became a veritable Isaiah. 
His anti-slavery verses reveal a soul lost 
to self and fear, a brain on fire with holy 
indignation. His words burn into the 
heart ; they fire but do not sear the con- 
science. They reveal to us a man whose 
love of justice and freedom has consumed 
all baser thought. Hear this heart-cry for 
the honor of the Old Bay State : — 

O my God ! — for that free spirit, which of old in 

Boston town 
Smote the Province House with terror, struck the 

crest of Andros down ! — 
For another strong- voiced Adams in the city's 

streets to cry : 
" Up for God and Massachusetts ! Set your feet 

on Mammon's lie ! 
Perish banks and perish traffic, spin your cottons' 

latest pound, 
But in Heaven's name keep your honor, — keep the 

heart o' the Bay State sound ! " 
S9 


So also, in this stanza from tc The Crisis,' ' 
we are reminded of the prophet, who 
speaks with an authority from within, in 
bold contrast to the diffident, retiring and 
mild-mannered Quaker : — 

The crisis presses on us; face to face with us it 

stands, 
With solemn lips of question, like the Sphinx in 

Egypt's sands ! 
This day we fashion destiny, our web of fate we 

spin; 
This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or 

sin ; 
Even now from starry Gerizim, or Ebal's cloudy 

crown, 
We call the dews of blessing or the bolts of cursing 

down! 

From the heat and turmoil of the great 
moral battles which so profoundly aroused 
the prophet soul, we turn to the poet after 
he has withdrawn from the forum of public 
contention — after he has ascended the 


90 


mountain, if you will — and hear the calm- 
voiced mystic utter thoughts which flood 
his soul as the moonlight floods the snow- 
crowned mountain peaks : — 

Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight, 
Through present wrong, the eternal right ; 
And step by step, since time began, 
I see the steady gain of man ; 

That all of good the past hath had 
Remains to make our own time glad, 
Our common, daily life divine, 
And every land a Palestine. 

Through the harsh noises of our day 
A low sweet prelude finds its way ; 
Through clouds of doubt and creeds of fear, 
A light is breaking, calm and clear. 

That song of love, now low and far, 
Ere long shall swell from star to star ! 
That light, the breaking day which tips 
The golden-spired apocalypse ! 

O friend! we need nor rock nor sand, 
Nor storied stream of morning-land ; 


91 


The heavens are glassed in Merrimac — 
What more could Jordan render back ? 

We lack but open eye and ear 
To find the Orient's marvels here — 
The still small voice in autumn's hush 
Ton maple wood the burning bush. 

Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more 
For olden time and holier shore ; 
God's love and blessing, then and there, 
Are now and here and everywhere. 

And again he asserts, with that all-sus- 
taining faith which characterizes the true 
mystic : — 

There are, who like the seer of old, 

Can see the helpers God has sent, 
And how life's rugged mountain side 

Is white with many an angel tent ! 

They hear the heralds whom our Lord 
Sends down His pathway to prepare ; 

And light, from others hidden, shines 
On their high place of faith and prayer. 

92 


Unheard no burdened heart's appeal 

Moans up to God's inclining ear ; 
Unheeded by His tender eye, 

Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear. 

In Gerald Massey, as in Whittier, we 
find the union of the prophet, reformer and 
mystic. I am aware that Mr. Massey does 
not like the term " mystic/' holding that 
he advances nothing which has not been 
proven to him. Perhaps he would prefer 
the term " Seer." I use it here in its 
larger sense of seer — a see-er of things 
wrapped in mystery and obscurity for the 
mass of men. This gives the word 
" Mystic " its truest, noblest sense ; and in 
this sense I know of no word which so 
well expresses the meaning I desire to 
convey. 

We have seen with what superb courage 
he has assailed entrenched wrongs and 
popular injustice. We have noted his lofty 
faith, and caught glimpses of the future 


triumph of right through the mirror of his 
soul. We now pass to notice the poet as a 
mystic. In the following lines we have 
a great thought beautifully expressed : 

God hath been gradually forming man 
In His own image since the world began, 
And is forever working on the soul, 
Like sculptor on his statue, till the whole 
Expression of the upward life be wrought 
Into some semblance of the Eternal thought. 
Race after race hath caught its likeness of 
The Maker as the eyes grew larger with love. 

Here is a companion thought : — 

What you call matter is but as the sheath, 
Shaped, even as bubbles are, by the spirit-breath. 
The mountains are but firmer clouds of earth, 
Still changing to the breath that gave them birth. 
Spirit aye shapeth matter into view, 
As music wears the form it passes through. 
Spirit is lord of substance, matter's sole 
First cause, formative power, and final goal. 

It will be seen that the poet, while dis^ 

94 


carding the crude ideas and conceptions of 
creation which were born in the childhood 
of the human race, opposes the views popu- 
lar among certain thinkers, who hold that 
the human brain is merely an expression 
of physical evolution, and that the law- 
governed universe, with art, design and 
intelligence visible in its every phenome- 
non, is merely the result of force, working 
blindly and without intelligence. The 
wonderful facts demonstrated through hyp- 
notism, and the results which have crowned 
the painstaking and careful research of 
leading scientists in the fields of psychical 
phenomena, have by external evidence and 
incontrovertible facts greatly strengthened 
the position arrived at by the mystic 
through the intuitional power and acute 
interior perception. 

Mr. Massey believes that the tree is to 
be judged by its fruit ; that, according as 
you have performed the will of the Infinite 

95 


One, or expressed the best and truest in 
your life, you shall be rewarded — or, 
rather, that every good deed bears the doer 
upward, every real sin lowers the soul. 
He teaches the high and wholesome moral- 
ity that, precisely as we help lift and 
benefit our fellow-men, our souls blossom 
into the likeness of divinity ; that it is by 
deeds of service that the spirit is made 
royal. His teaching touching the future 
of the soul is thus clearly set forth : — 

Both heaven and hell are from the human race, 
And every soul projects its future place : 
Long shadows of ourselves are thrown before, 
To wait our coming on the eternal shore. 
These either cloth us with eclipse and night, 
Or, as we enter them, are lost in light. 

There is a striking similarity of thought 
between the above and these lines of Whit- 
tier, although the imagery is entirely dif- 
ferent : — 


We shape ourselves the j oy or fear 
Of which the coming life is made, 

And fill our future's atmosphere 
With sunshine or with shade. 

The tissue of the life to be 

We weave with colors all our own, 

And in the fields of destiny 
We reap as we have sown. 

Mr. Massey, while holding that law runs 
through the universe and that sin brings 
its own punishment, does not hold to the 
frightful old-time doctrine that man, en- 
vironed by sin and surrounded by tempta- 
tion, having only a few fleeting years 
in which to obtain wisdom, is nevertheless 
doomed to be lost for eternity if he falls by 
the wayside. Such a belief is abhorrent to 
so broad, tender and noble a nature as his. 
On this point he says : — 

I think heaven will not shut forevermore, 
Without a knocker left upon the door, 


97 


Lest some belated traveller should come 

Heart-broken, asking just to die at home, 

So that the Father will at last forgive, 

And looking on His face that soul shall live. 

I think there will be watchmen through the night, 

Lest any, far off, turn them to the light ; 

That He who loved us into life must be 

A Father infinitely fatherly, 

And, groping for Him, these shall find their way 

From outer dark, through twilight, into day. 

I could not sing the song of harvest home, 

Thinking of those poor souls that never come ; 

I could not joy for harvest gathered in, 

If any souls, like tares and twitch of sin, 

Were flung out by the farmer to the fire, 

Whose smoke of torment, rising higher and higher, 

Should fill the universe forevermore. 

Our science grasps with its transforming hand, 
Makes real half the tales of wonderland. 
We turn the deathliest fetor to perfume ; 
We give decay new life and rosy bloom ; 
Change filthy rags to paper, virgin white , 
Make pure in spirit what was foul to sight. 
Even dead, recoiling force, to a fairy gift 
Of help is turned, and taught to deftly lift. 

98 


How can we think God hath no crucible 
Save some black country of a burning hell ? 
Or the great ocean of Almighty power, 
No scoop to take the life stream from our shore, 
Muddy and dark, and make it pure once more ? 

Dear God, it seems to me that love must be 
The missionary of eternity ! 
Must still find work, in worlds beyond the grave, 
So long as there's a single soul to save ; 
Gather the jewels that flash Godward in 
The dark, down-trodden, toad-like head of sin 
That all divergent lines at length will meet, 
To make the clasping round of love complete ; 
The rift 'twixt sense and spirit will be healed, 
Before creation's work is crowned and sealed ; 
The discords cease, and all their strife shall be 
Resolved in one vast, peaceful harmony. 

Another truth which Mr. Massey fre- 
quently expresses is the presence of the 
Infinite One here and now, in opposition to 
the narrow view that God spake to His 
children only in ancient times. Like 
Whittier, he ever teaches that God is 


99 


with us now and here, and that none of 
the glory of other days is absent from our 
own. In one notable poem he thus 
sings : — 

There is no gleam of glory gone, 

For those who read in nature's book ; 
No lack of triumph in their look 

Who stand in her eternal dawn. 

And again, with the calm assurance of 
the mystic, he says : — 

Not only in old days He bowed 

The heavens and came down ; 
We, too, were shadowed by the cloud, 

We saw the glory shown ! 
The nations that seemed dead have felt 

His coming through them thrill : 
Beneath His tread the mountains melt : 

Our God is living still ! 

He who in secret hears the sigh, 

Interprets every tear, 
Hath lightened on us from on high, 

Made known His presence near ! 


100 


The Word takes flesh, the Spirit form, 

His purpose to fulfil ; 
He comes in person of the storm — 

Our God who governs still ! 

We saw — all of us saw — how He 

Drew sword and struck the blow, 
And up and free through their Red Sea 

He bade the captives go : 
Yea, we have seen Him, clearly seen 

Him work the miracle : 
We know, whate'er may intervene, 

Our God is with us still ! 

The veil of time a moment falls 

From off the Eternal's face : 
Recede the old horizon walls 

To give fresh breathing space : 
And all who lift their eyes may learn 

It is our Father's will, 
This world to Him shall freely turn, 

A world of freedom still ! 

The traveller in the valley sees little 
of what is around him. He journeys for a 


101 


day up the mountain slope, and his vision 
is marvellously broadened. Another day's 
journey toward the peak reveals a still 
more glorious panorama, and when he 
reaches the highest crest an almost infinite 
expanse stretches on every side. So the 
barbarian caught a contracted and very 
partial view of God's love and beauty — 
his own limitation of vision and the animal 
passions which overmastered him dulled 
spiritual perception. But as the race rose 
through countless ages, the conception of 
the Infinite became expanded, and as the 
spirit grew more and more sublimated, the 
real character of the Deity, uncolored by 
human prejudice and passion, became ap- 
parent to the most royal natures. A hint 
of this thought is given in the last stanza 
of the above lines. 

Few poets have ever thrown into simple 
words a more beautiful conception of man's 
relation to God, or God's broad love and 

102 


sympathy for his children, who through 
past ages have been struggling upward 
toward the light, than is found in these 
lines of Mr. Massey's : — 

This human life is no mere looking-glass, 

In which God sees His shadows as you pass. 

He did not start the pendulum of time, 

To go by law with one great swing sublime, 

Resting himself in lonely joy apart : 

But to each pulse of life his beating heart. 

And, as a parent sensitive, is stirred 

By falling sparrow, or heart- winged word. 

As the babe's life within the mother's dim 
And deaf, you dwell in God, a dream of Him. 
Ye stir, and put forth feelers which are clasped 
By airy hands, and higher life is grasped 
As yet but darkly. Life is in the root, 
And looking heavenward, from the ladder-foot, 
Wingless as worms, with earthiness fast bound, 
Up which ye mount but slowly, round on round, 
Long climbing brings ye to the Father's knee ; 
Ye open gladsome eyes at last to see 
That face of love ye felt so inwardly. 


103 


In this vast universe of worlds no waif, 
No spirit, looks to Him but floateth safe ; 
No prayer so lowly but is heard on high ; 
And if a soul should sigh, and lift an eye, 
That soul is kept from sinking with a sigh. 

All life, down to the worm beneath the sod, 
Hath spiritual relationship to God — 
The Life of Life, the love of all, in all ; 
Lord of the large and infinitely small. 

In these verses our poet gives expression 
to the new religion which is taking posses- 
sion of the most exalted minds of our day. 
It is all very well to say that G-od is so 
much more than the finest expression of 
the divine in man that we cannot compre- 
hend Him : but we cannot use this reason- 
able assumption to bolster up the unreason- 
able and impossible one that God's attributes 
are not in alignment with the most perfect 
ideal which haunts the noblest brains of 
the best civilization. There are certain 
eternal verities, the highest and most splen- 
ica 


did of which is love. These verities are im- 
mutable and unchanging ; they form a con- 
stellation upon which the eyes of the noblest 
and most truly divine in all ages have 
rested. And as humanity in her slow 
ascent rises to higher altitudes of civiliza- 
tion, a greater number come to appreciate 
the supreme truth that it is only that 
which is divine in essence which can yield 
enduring happiness and spiritual peace. 
The Golden Rule is not peculiar to any one 
religion. It has been taught in spirit by 
philosophers, poets and sages throughout 
the ages. There are certain fundamental 
principles in ethics which, by common con- 
sent, the highest and purest souls of all 
lands and periods have regarded as divine ; 
and in proportion as man has given ex- 
pression to the godlike attributes in his life 
he has approached earth's highest dream 
of divinity. The lofty ideal which this 
dream embodies runs like a thread of gold 

105 


through every civilization. It was taught 
by Zoroaster and Confucius, by Gautama 
and Pythagoras, by the prophets of Israel, 
and the Stoics of Greece and Eome ; it 
found glorious expression in the life and 
teaching of Jesus. God, compared with 
earth's noblest man, may be as the ocean to 
the rivulet, as the Himalayas to the ant 
mound ; but His nature, if He is the in- 
carnation of what humanity holds as high- 
est, sweetest and truest, must be all that 
the most divine expression of manhood is, 
and inconceivably more than this, in the 
expression of the divine attributes. He 
must be the infinite reservoir of all those 
virtues which make manhood divine ; and 
being this, He could not do things which 
would be abhorrent to the noblest man. 
If at any point throughout the cycle of 
eternity, He should draw the dead line 
across which even the weakest of the chil- 
dren He has called into an eternal existence 


106 


might not fly from darkness and pain into 
the light, purity and love of a better life, 
He would be guilty of a crime so abhorrent 
to an exalted and humane earthly parent 
that the parent himself would rather die 
than condemn his offspring to such a fate. 
The supreme truth, that Grod must be 
better than the best man instead of worse 
than the most cruel savage, is the keynote 
of the new evangel which our nineteenth- 
century prophets and mystics have given 
the children of men. That is the thought 
which Whittier, who, in the truest sense, 
was a mystic, so forcibly put in the follow- 
ing lines : — 

I dare not fix with mete and bound 

The love and power of God. 

***** 
I see the wrong that round me lies, 

I feel the guilt within ; 
I hear, with groan and travail-cries, 

The world confess its sin. 


107 


Yet, in the maddening maze of things, 

And tossed by storm and flood, 
To one fixed trust my spirit clings : 

I know that God is good ! 

# * # * # 

I know not where His islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air ; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care. 

This same thought is further impressively 
taught in the exquiste little allegorical 
poem, " The Two Angels," in which Whit- 
tier gives voice to the conception of G-od 
which is the burden of the song of the 
great poets of our time : — 

God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him 

above ; 
The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one wa 8 

Love. 
"Arise," He said, " my angels ! A wail of woe and 

sin 
Steals through the gates of heaven, and saddens all 

within. 


108 


*' My harps take up the mournful strain that from a 

lost world swells, 
The smoke of torment clouds the light, and blights 

the asphopels. 

"Fly downward to that under world, and on its 

souls of pain 
Let Love drop smiles like sunshine, and Pity tears 

like rain ! " 

Two faces bowed before the throne, veiled in their 

golden hair ; 
Four white wings lessened swiftly down the dark 

abyss of air. 

The way was strange, the flight was long ; at last 
the angels came 

Where swung the lost and nether world, red-wrap- 
ped in rayless flame. 

There Pity, shuddering, wept ; but Love, with faith 

too strong for fear, 
Took heart from God's almightiness, and smiled a 

smile of cheer. 

And lo! that tear of Pity quenched the flame 

whereon it fell, 
And, with the sunshine of that smile, hope entered 

into hell ! 

109 


Two unveiled faces full of joy looked upward to the 

throne, 
Four white wings folded at the feet of Him who 

sat thereon ! 

And deeper than the sounds of seas, more soft than 

falling flake, 
Amidst the hush of wing and song the Voice 

Eternal spake : 

" Welcome, my angels ! ye have brought a holier 

joy to heaven ; 
Henceforth its sweetest song shall be the song of sin 

forgiven ? " 

In one of his last poems, Tennyson, while 
the light of the other world was silvering 
his brow, thus expressed this same con- 
ception : — 

Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and 

the best, 
Let not all that saddens nature blight thy hope or 

break thy rest, 

* * # * # 


110 


Neither mourn if human creeds be lower than the 

heart's desire ! 
Through the gates that bar the distance comes a 

gleam of what is higher. 

Wait till death has flung them open, when the man 

will make the Maker 
Dark no more with human hatreds in the glare of 

deathless £r a . ! 

The idea of the Eternal Goodness, in 
varying phraseology, has been presented 
by almost all the great poets and prophets 
of our own time. Gerald Massey, in one 
of his terse sentences, says : " Any God 
who demands the worship of fear is un- 
worthy the service of love.' 9 The new 
religion goes out in love to all life. It 
binds up the bruises of him who has fallen 
by the wayside. It extends the hand to 
the sinking. It calls aloud for justice for 
the weak and oppressed. It denounces 
tyranny, injustice and whatsoever lowers 
manhood or degrades womanhood. It de- 

111 


mands that the rights of the child and 
those of the mother be sacredly and inviol- 
ably kept. It whispers hope and love to 
the despairing. It gives voice to the words 
which come from above in the most exalted 
songs of our time. It teaches the kinship 
of man to God in such a way that the old- 
time nightmare disappears. And as the 
child, with open arms and joyous cry, 
rushes to meet the loved parent, so do 
earth's children go to the Father above for 
that sustaining power and holy peace 
which through all past time sages have 
drawn from the Infinite. This thought is 
beautifully set forth by Mr. Massey in the 
following lines : — 

There is no pathway Man hath ever trod, 
By faith or seeking sight, but ends in God. 
Yet 'tis in vain ye look Without to find 
The inner secrets of the Eternal mind, 
Or meet the King on His external throne. 
But when ye kneel at heart, and feel so lone, 

112 


Perchance behind the veil you get the grip 

And spirit-sign of secret fellowship ; 

Silently as the gathering of a tear 

The human want will bring the Helper near: 

The very weakness that is utterest need 

Of God, will draw Him down with strength indeed. 

In the province of religious thought, Mr. 
Massey has been a herald of the new day. 
His utterances are deeply spiritual, yet 
charmingly rational. While recognizing 
the interior self as the true ego, and fully 
appreciating the spiritual forces underlying 
creation, he abhors superstition, and is filled 
with a holy passion for a more complete 
knowledge of life. He cannot understand 
why men should place prejudice above 
truth, and believes it to be the sacred duty 
of every man, woman and child, to use the 
divine torch of reason to guide his steps. 
He is a thorough believer in evolution, and 
hails modern science as the handmaid of 
progress. In a word, Gerald Massey is 
a child of the dawn. 

113 




iJU 


Civilization's Inferno; or, studies 

in the Social Cellar. By B. O. Flower. 


A bold, unconventional work, which in a merciless manner 
lays bare the criminal extravagance, the disgusting flunkyism, 
and the immorality found in what the author terms the "Froth 
of Society." 

It fearlessly contrasts the criminal extravagance and moral 
effeminacy of the slothful rich with the terrible social, moral 
and physical condition of the ignorant, starving, and degraded 
poor. 

It carries the reader into the social cellar where uninvited 
poverty abounds, and from there into the sub-cellar, or the 
world of the criminal poor. 

It is rich in suggestive hints, and should be in the hands of 
every thoughtful man and woman in America. 

Absorbingly interesting and at times thrilling, no one can 
read its pages without being made better for the perusal. 

Table of Contents. — I. Introductory Chapter. II. So- 
ciety's Exiles. III. Two Hours in the Social Cellar. 
IV. The Democracy of Darkness. V. Why the Isma- 
elites Multiply. VI. The Froth and the Dregs. VII. 
A Pilgrimage and a Vision. VIII. What of the 
Morrow ? 

Handsomely B«und in Cloth ; Price, $1.00. 


Tne Arena Publishing Company, - Boston, Mass. 


Press Criticisms of Civilization's 
Inferno. 


It is a truthful and graphic delineation of the condition of the people in 
the social undertow. Mr. Flower has a keen and profound sympathy with 
the difficulties that the poor are laboring under, and he describes what he 
has seen with his own eyes in terms that chill one's blood. He does not 
hesitate to call things by their right names, and points out the magnitude of 
the peril, showing that no palliative measures will satisfy people. — Daily 
Herald, Boston. 

It is a strong appeal to the Christian civilization of the times to arise 
and change the current of human misery which in these modern times is 
driving with such resistless force. — Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean. 

A book which should be read and studied by all. Mr. Flower's high 
enthusiasm, the artistic impulse which has guided his pen, together with his 
intimate knowledge gained by personal investigation of the matter, make his 
book most admirable. — Boston Times. 

It is not only the record made of discoveries during a period of system- 
atic slumming, but it is also a philosophical view of the dangers of the con- 
ditions which he discusses.— Chicago Times. 

The work is a masterly presentation of social conditions around us. 
These make a vast problem, and it is by such earnest thinkers as Mr. 
Flower that they will be solved. — Chicago Herald. 

A thoughtful work by a thoughtful man, and should turn the minds of 
many who are now ignorant or careless to the condition of the countless 
thousands who live in the " social cellar." No one can read the book with- 
out feeling that the author's diagnosis of the case is true and gives each one 
his own personal responsibility. — Courier Journal, Louisville, Ky. 

This work has created a decided sensation throughout the country, and 
has raised considerable controversy between the author and other writers 
on the one hand, and society's leaders on the other. It is a fresh presenta- 
tion from personal observation of the facts of poverty, destitution, squalor, 
and oppression that exists in every large city in the world.— Burlington 
Hawkeye, Burlington, Iowa. 


Society, as it is now constituted, is nothing less than a sleeping volcano. 
Who dares to say how soon the upheaval will come, or whether it can be 
evaded by the adoption of prompt measures of relief ? Certainly the con- 
dition of the lower social strata calls for immediate action on the part of 
those whose safety is at stake. Mr. Flower has accomplished a great work, 
in setting forth the exact truth of the matter, without any effort at palliation. 
It will be well indeed for the prospeross classes of the community if they are 
warned in time.— Boston Beacon. 

What general Booth has done for London and Mr. Jacobs Riis for New 
York, Mr. Flower has done for cultured Boston. He is a professional man 
of letters, and tells his story with the skill and knack of his craft.— Daily 
Constitution, Atlanta, Ga. 

A powerfully written book, presenting facts which ought to move the 
most sluggish soul to resolve and action. Its whole lesson, sad as it is, is one 
that needs to be learned ; and we will not detract from its completeness by 
presenting it in fragments ; but we desire to call special attention to the 
author's exposition of the facts, concerning which there has been so much 
scepticism, that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer. If there 
is any lingering belief or hope in the mind of anybody that his statement is a 
mere partisan bugaboo, as it has sometimes been styled, Mr. Flower's 
book will settle the matter. — Daily Free Press, Detroit, Mich. 

He literally uncaps the pit, the hell on earth; and if there are "the 
pleasures of sin for a season," ii will be seen that the season is not a long 
one. The author depicts the scenes he has witnessed, and has the moral 
purpose — the passion for a better estate — which, enlivening his pages, makes 
the book as wholesome as it is inciting to practical endeavor.— Christian 
Leader, Boston. 

In this book the great social problem of the day is laid before the reader 
in all its importance, its increasing dangers are pointed out, and practical 
remedies suggested in a way that is as interesting as thoughtful. We are 
glad to see the fashionable extravagances and vices of the class that assumes 
for itself the title of " society " treated with the condemnation they deserve. 
It is a work that has long been needed, and we are sure it will go far toward 
the end it looks forward to so hopefully.— Nassua Literary Magazine, 
published by senior class of Princeton University. 

A volume of remarkable interest and power, and merits the careful at- 
tention of all students of social problems.— Boston Daily Traveller. 


iii. 


The New Time: A Plea for the Union 
of the Moral Forces for Practical Prog- 
ress. 


This new work, by the author of " Civilization's Inferno," 
deals with practical methods for the reform of specific social 
evils, which are capable of vast diminution and of ultimate 
abolition. The writer does not bind together a mere bundle 
of social speculations, that would seem to many to have only 
a remote and abstract relevance to everyday life. He deals 
with facts within every one's knowledge. 

The Table of Contents, briefly sketched, gives perhaps the 
very best idea of its practical aims, both immediate and ulti- 
mate : — 

I. Union for Practical Progress.— The widespread desire for the 
union of all who wish to help the world onward. — Is it practical ? — Some 
things which have been accomplished. 

II. They Have Fallen into the Winepress.— Olive Schreiner's 
" Visions of Helh" and its application to present conditions — The out-of- 
work, homeless ones in our midst — Moral obliquity in the young — 'Edu- 
cation, justice and freedom the remedies— Some suggestive hints. 

III. Jesus or (Lesar. — The opportunity of the Church — The rise of 
the spirit of Csesar — The spirit and teachings of Jesus — The hope of the 
republic — How each one may hasten a brighter day. 

IV. The New Time. — The heart-hunger of our time — The work be- 
fore us — The elevation and emancipation of humanity through education 
and justice — Crying evils and great reforms which demand the attention of 
thoughtful people — The duty and responsibility of the individual — Some 
helpful illustrations — The starving and shelterless Chriss at our door — 
Fundamental and palliative remedies — Let the next step be evolutionary. 

V. Then Dawned a Light in the East. — A Suggestive lesson 
from the history of the civilization of two thousand years ago — Society in 
Rome under the Caesars — The hectic flush of death — Intellectual training 
without moral culture — An age of artificiality — Civilization in Palestine — 
The rise of a great, serene soul in the midst of a society permeated by cant 
and hypocrisy — The three great redemptive words, Faith, Hope and Love; 
their influence two thousand years ago — Present conditions — Our duty — 
The present no time for idleness or pessimism — The dawn is purpling the 
east. 

Handsome Cloth: Price, $1.00. 
iv. 


Press Criticisms of New Time. 

It is a fervent plea for the union and practical co-operation of all those 
who are interested in the welfare of humanity, and who believe that it is 
their duty to do their utmost toward alleviating the sufferings of their less 
fortunate fellow mortals. Mr. Flower is a firm believer in the ultimate 
triumph of the spirit of fraternity and justice, and in this little book he sug- 
gests how this spirit may be fostered throughout the United States. 
There are many loving souls, he claims, in every city, town and village, who 
would fain spend most of their lives in aiding their fellows, and he main- 
tains that a wondrous amount of good would be the result if only these 
scattered children of light could be properly organized. Undoubtedly he is 
right, and it would not surprise us if this idea took root. We may not all 
possess Mr. Flower's enthusiasm, but we must all admire the eloquence 
with which he pictures the " new time " for which he yearns, the time when 
all men wnll be brothers and justice will rule the earth. — New Yurk Herald. 

Mr. Flower takes his stand on the side of human progress. In the book 
''The New Time," he enters a vigorous, earnest and touching plea for the 
union of warring sects in the great cause of the amelioration of human 
misery, whether it arises from poverty or guilt. 

Without being in any respect a sermon, Mr. Flower's work has all the 
force and convincing power of the pulpit. Indeed it has more, for the pulpit 
is often enough the vehicle of the denunciation of opposing sects — a fact 
which occasionally mars its usefulness in the eyes of every reflecting man. 
Mr. Flower's book touches briefly on the causes of much of human suffering 
and crime, and proceeds to show how a real and permanent union of Chris- 
tian workers of all denominations can be achieved and what noble results will 
spring from such a union. 

Such a union as he points out has long been the dream of the humani- 
tarian, but up to the present the jealousy of sect has prevented it from being 
realized. For many years, however, the Christian world has been gradually 
brought closer together, and the work of consolidation is still going on. The 
time will probably never come when all religions will be merged in each 
other, nor is it necessary for the cause of Christian union, as Mr. Flower 
understands it, that it should. All he pleads for is that the churches should 
join together in the common cause of elevating the poor and the wretched, 
Dor is it necessary that in so doing they should sacrifice any essential part of 
their doctrines. 

The Parliament of Religions gave a stronger impetus to the movement 
for Christian union than anything that has been done or anything that has 
been written for a couple of centuries past, and that noble conference is 
bearing and has borne noble fruit. Much, nevertheless, remains to be done. 


Hundreds of thousands must be reached by individual persuasion. Much of 
the literature that is to do this yet remains to be written, but if the writers of 
it shall model themselves on the liberality, tolerance and true Christianity 
which characterizes Mr. Flower's work, the end in view may not be so very 
far off after all.— Daily Item, Philadelphia, Pa. 

The inspiration of a new social order seems to have suddenly assumed the 
proportions of a contagion. Prophets are springing up all over the land, and 
new books from every quarter of the globe. The real import of God's love 
for the world seems to be dawning upon the mind of thinkers for the first 
time in social history, and reformers are ju^t beginning to catch the inspira- 
tion of the Christ-life. These books are by no means accordant as yet, but 
they are sufficiently harmonious in design to impress the student with the 
fact that the kingdom of heaven is about to begin on earth. Almost all 
modern writers on social conditions are so imbued with the altruistic spirit 
that altruism seems to be the " Elias " of the new era. 

So prominent indeed is this spirit in the above work that one almost 
feels that its author is the John the Baptist of the time about which he 
prophesies, and that he should at once demand bantism at his hands — that 
is, a baptism of his spirit. We cannot have too many such books as this at 
this time. It was not written for the sake of the book nor its author, but of 
humanity. It is a plain yet earnest and vigorous presentation of some of our 
social conditions, with suggestions, not a few of which are entirely practical 
and full of promise. It has little of the visionary and speculative in it and 
proposes immediate action upon practical grounds for the purpose of the 
earliest possible relief and solution of our troubles. — Christian Evangelist, 
St. Louis, Mo. 

Like whatever Mr. Flower writes, the book has to do with a. practical, 
immediate means of helping humanity in the throes of its upward struggle. 
Humanity as a mass of course contains the leavening lump of spirituality 
which will ultimately express itself as a matter of course in the very reforms 
we so much desire. Equally of course do the consciously-spiritual workers 
assist in this process — this forms one of the pleasures as well as duties of the 
enlightened state. 

And it. is just such an influence as this Union for Practical Progress that 
sets emotions and movements working which need almost but a touch to 
overspread the sky with a blaze of glory— the glory of awakened humanity. 
It is incalculable, the good to be accomplished by concerted plans, organized 
in individual places but ail with one central purpose and animated by one 
central desire. The name of the organization is a good one too, appealing to 
everyone, everywhere. Practical progress is what we need, and aid toward 
that end cannot fail of eager appreciation. The movement by its nature 
appeals to the higher faculties, arouses and puts them in working order — 
and by this means anything may be accomplished. 

In such a cause we know of no one who does more valiant work than 
Mr. Flower. Convinced of its "righteousness," he will pursue it to its 
ultimate personally, and arouse in hostsof others both desire and determina- 
tion to do likewise. Such work is of inestimable value — and in thi* con- 
nection everyone should realize that every person is helping his fellow if he 
but live on the highest plane of which he is conscious, also striving con- 
stantly to get still higher by helping to raise others. — Boston Ideas, Boston, 
Mass. 


Lessons Learned from Other Lives. 

A BOOK OF SHORT BIOGRAPHIES, WRITTEN 
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 

Contents. — I. The Philosopher, Seneca and Epictetus. 
II. The Warrior Maid, Joan of Arc. III. The 
Statesman, Henry Clay. IV. The Actor, Edwin 
Booth, Joseph Jefferson. V. The Poet, John Howard 
Payne, William Cullen Bryant, Edgar Allan Poe, Alice 
Cary, Phoebe Cary, J. G. Whittier, VI. The Scientist, 
Alfred Russel Wallace. VII. The Many-Sided 
Genius, Victor Hugo. 

PRESS COMMENTS. 

A highly interesting and instructive work. — Daily Telegraph, Hart- 
ford, Conn. 

A readable and helpful book. Mr. Flower is an earnest, thoughtful, 
radical, compact writer. Many who gladly read these sketches will be made 
nobler and braver thereby. — Education, Boston , Mass. 

This is a delightful book to read. It is written with exquisite taste and 
tenderness. it effloresces with a literary aroma. The author has ^ught a 
fair and favored field in which to find mental rumination. His effort is an 
idyl of lite's faire t forms and figures He is a young, brilliant writer. The 
book sparkles with literary jewels. — Christian Leader, Cincinnati, O- 

An admirable collection of brief biographical sketches, each teaching by 
some anecdote or illustration the prominent characteristic of the lite under 
consideration Among those selected we note Joan of Arc, Henry Clay, 
Joe Jefferson, Bryant, Poe, Whittier, A. R. Wallace, and Victor Hugo The 
sketches are brightly written and the salient points in each life well brought 
out. Many of the best poems of the poets named are given. — 'I he states, 
Nezv Orleans, La. 

B. O. Flower, editor of The Arena, has given to biographical litera- 
ture one of the most charming books it has ever been our good fortune to 
read. The book in question is entitled " Lessons Learned from Uther 
Lives." It is written in a delightfully easy style, and many of the lives are 
of personal friends of the author. — Mvery Saturday, Elgin, 111. 

The Arena Publishing Company, of Boston, has recently issued an at- 
tractive volume entitled " Lessons Learned from Other Lives." Mr. B. O. 
Flower, the well-known editor of The Arena, has given us under this name 
a number of biief historiettes illustrative of different phases of characu r. 
Mr Flower modestly dedicates his work more especially to the young; but 
the admirable style, the terseness, and keen analysis of the >e ch-racter 
sketches will recommend them to all classes of readers. Biography should 
be especially interesting, but not every one has the ability to render it so 
Mr Flower has this happy faculty to an unnsual extent. His essays are 
equal to his editorials, and more cannot be said. — Rocky ^fountain Daily 
News, Denver, Col. 


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